TUTOR'S  ONE 

W1LMAKTH   LEWIS 


Tutors'   Lane 


_,. „, «.-•  -  «*— 


NEW  BORZOI  NOVELS 
FALL,  igaz 

THE  QUEST 

Pio   Baroja 
THE  ROOM 

G.  B.  Stern 
ONE  OF  OURS 

Willa   Gather 
MARY  LEE 

Geoffrey  Dennis 
THE  PROMISED  ISLE 

Lavrids    Bruun 
THE  RETURN 

Walter  de  la  Mare 
THE  BRIGHT  SHAWL 

Joseph  Hergesheimer 
THE   MOTH   DECIDES 

Edvjard  Alden  Jewell 
INDIAN  SUMMER 

Emily    Grant    Hutchings 


COPYRIGHT,   1922,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 

Published,  September,  19W 


Bvt  up  and  ftinltd  In  (Se  \'oil-Balloti  Co  ,  Binokamton,  .V.  Y. 
Paper  nwpli'd  l>v  W.  F.  Ether ini/ton  A  Co.,  -Vftc  York,  S.  Y. 
Bound  6*  tfte  H.  Wolff  Ettate,  Ntu>  York,  N.  Y. 


MANUI-ACTURED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA 


To 

Helen  and  Wilson  Follett 


2130967 


LORD  TOLLOLLER:  ".  .  .  .  of  birth  and  position  I've  plenty; 
I've  grammar  and  spelling  for  two, 
And  blood  and  behavior  for  twenty." 

IOLANTHE. 


Tutors'  Lane 


A  SYLLABUS 

Having  once,  for  a  few  months,  had  a  literary 
column  in  a  newspaper,  I  have  come  to  admire  those 
authors  who  place  at  the  beginning  of  their  books 
a  "word"  in  which  the  whole  thing  is  given  away. 
The  time  that  those  words  saved  me  in  writing  my 
reviews — time  which  otherwise  would  have  been 
lost  in  reading  the  books — enabled  me  to  write  this 
book;  a  consummation  which  may  have,  in  its  heart, 
a  significant  kernel,  and  which  certainly  shows  how 
funny  the  world  is,  after  all. 

Now,  as  to  this  book  and  what  it  is  all  about,  I 
frankly  am  at  a  loss.  That's  the  difficulty  of  being 
too  near  it.  Whether  it  is  realism,  naturalism,  or 
merely  restrained  romanticism,  I  simply  do  not 
know.  It  is  awkward  not  knowing,  for  in  the  battle 
of  the  schools  now  raging  I  should  like  to  take  sides. 
I  should  like  either  to  charge  with  the  romantics,  or 
defend  with  the  realists.  It  must  be  good  fun  being 
pushed  and  shoved  around,  with  someone's  elbow  in 
your  eye  and  someone  else's  hatpin  in  your  ear,  and 
everyone  crying,  in  the  words  of  a  recent  heroine, 
"I  want  to  be  outraged."  But,  for  the  present  at 
least,  I  must  be  content,  like  little  Oliver  Twist,  to 
look  hungrily  on. 

The  story  which  trickles  through  the  book  starts 

11 


12  Tutors'  Lane 

out  bravely  enough.  Of  this  much,  at  least,  I  can 
be  moderately  sure.  For  a  short  time  it  looks  as 
though  something  might  come  of  it;  but  nothing 
really  does.  It  is  all  so  terribly  obvious.  There 
are  no  obstacles  such  as  one  finds  in  real  fiction;  there 
is  no  love  spasm  in  Chapter  XXV.  There  is  no 
Chapter  XXV  at  all !  And  so  it  must  be  perfectly 
clear  that  those  who  insist  upon  having  their  love 
spasms  will  be  bored  to  death  by  Tutors'  Lane 
and  should  on  no  account  be  allowed  to  look 
at  it.  There  is  love,  of  course,  in  an  academic  com 
munity;  one  frequently  sees  evidences  of  it;  but  it  is 
love  under  control,  properly  subordinated  to  the 
all  important  business  of  uniting  youth  and  learning 
— and  to  snatching  time  for  an  occasional  rejuvenat 
ing  flutter  in  the  sacred  fount  itself. 

So  the  syllabus  is  little  more  than  a  nervous  shake 
of  the  hand  and  a  timid  statement  of  a  few  negative 
"points" — a  disheartening,  if  not  positively  danger 
ous,  affair.  That  there  are  lurking  beauties,  how 
ever,  peeping  shyly  out  like  johnny-jump-ups  and 
wild  raspberry  blossoms,  there  appears  to  be  some 
evidence  on  the  jacket.  Meanwhile,  the  course  is 
open,  the  bell  is  ringing  to  class,  and  the  instructor, 
turning  over  the  text  to  Chapter  I,  is  prepared  to 
meet  whatever  scholars  God,  in  his  greater  wisdom, 
has  been  pleased  to  set  before  him. 


TOM  REYNOLDS,  Instructor  in  English  in 
Woodbridge  College,  walked  along  Tutors' 
Lane  in  the  gathering  dusk  of  a  March 
afternoon.  Persons  whose  knowledge  of  collegiate 
dons  is  limited  to  the  poverty-stricken,  butterfly- 
chasing  genus  created  by  humorous  scenario  writers 
would  be  surprised  to  learn  that  our  hero — for  such 
he  is  to  be — was  young,  sound  of  wind  and  limb, 
and  at  the  present  moment  comfortably  clothed  in  a 
coon-skin  coat.  The  latter  touch  might  be  accounted 
for  by  such  persons  on  the  basis  of  an  eccentric  city 
cousin  generously  disposed  to  casting  off  his  gar 
ments  when  only  half  worn,  but  the  other  two  points 
must  convince  them  of  the  faithlessness  of  the 
whole  account,  and  their  acquaintance  with  the 
young  man  will  accordingly  end  with  the  first  para 
graph. 

Woodbridge  College,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has 
never  been  without  a  few  young  men  of  this  type 
in  its  Faculty.  Situated  in  southern  New  England, 
it  has  roots  which  extend  well  back  into  the  Eight 
eenth  Century,  and  its  traditions,  keeping  pace  with 
its  growth,  rival  in  dignity  and  picturesqueness  those 
of  its  larger  neighbours.  Whereas  they  have  ex 
panded  from  Colleges  to  Universities,  Woodbridge 

13 


14  Tutors'  Lane 

has  been   content   to   restrict  its   enrolment   to   six 

hundred;  and  instead  of  making  entrance  easier  it 

has,  if  anything,  made  it  harder.     Accordingly,  the 

College  holds  it  head  high,  not  unconscious  that  the 

quality   of   its   instruction   and  of  its  graduates   is 

unsurpassed. 

The  Founders  of  the  College  placed  their  first 
building  on  the  crest  of  a  smallish  plateau  which 
commands  a  view  of  the  Blackmoor  Valley. 
Succeeding  generations  have  scattered  its  buildings 
haphazardly  about,  but,  thanks  to  the  generosity  of 
a  Woodbridge  son,  the  meadow  land  which  slopes 
away  from  the  crest  down  to  the  Lebanon  River, 
sixty  acres  in  all,  was  bought  and  given  to  the 
College;  and  upon  this  land  the  future  College 
is  to  rise.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  rather  vague 
talk  about  this  new  college — of  the  quadrangle 
which  is  to  solve  all  dormitory  and  recitation  prob 
lems,  and  which  is  to  shine  with  beauty.  But  at 
present  the  meadow  is  sacred  to  athletics,  and  the 
elaborate  new  boat  house,  completed  last  spring, 
seems  to  make  the  quadrangle  less  of  a  probability 
than  ever. 

Tutors'  Lane  is  the  main  artery  of  the  place. 
It  passes  through  the  college  green  and  on  down 
the  hill  through  a  row  of  faculty  houses  until  it 
reaches  the  village  of  Woodbridge  Center,  or,  as 
it  is  usually  called,  Center.  It  is  a  famous  street — 
famous  for  its  elms,  which  supply,  as  it  has  not 
infrequently  been  pointed  out,  the  dignity  of  a  nave; 
famous  for  the  doorways  and  windows  of  its  colonial 


Tutors'  Lane  15 

houses;  and  famous  for  the  distinction  and  pro 
priety  of  its  inhabitants. 

It  is  one  of  the  Woodbridge  traditions  that  these 
houses  are  inviolate.  Assistant  Professors'  wives, 
upon  taking  up  residence  in  Tutors'  Lane,  are  tact 
fully  warned  that  it  is  not  the  thing  to  alter  them. 
There  may  be  an  occasional  painting,  yes;  but  inno 
vations  in  the  way  of  building  are  not  to  be  thought 
of.  People  who  have  to  build  are  advised  to  do  it 
elsewhere;  certain  streets  are  provided  for  the  pur 
pose — High  Street,  for  example — and  though  of 
course  they  are  not  Tutors'  Lane,  doubtless  they  are 
livable  enough.  In  fact,  High  Street  is  distinctly 
coming  into  its  own,  thanks,  of  course,  to  the  High 
Street  Cemetery.  For  a  mortal  existence  in  Tutors' 
Lane  is  followed  by  an  immortal  one  in  the  High 
Street  Cemetery,  and  though  perhaps  those  who 
spend  mortality  in  the  Street  can  hardly  expect  to 
enjoy  immortality  in  the  Cemetery,  nevertheless,  no 
one  can  take  from  them  the  satisfaction  of  being 
the  neighbors  of  the  oldest  families  who  are  doing 
so.  Property  is  steadily  rising  in  High  Street, 
accordingly,  and  now  Assistant  Professors  and  their 
wives  do  well  indeed  to  settle  there. 

Tutors'  Lane  is  not  particularly  wide  for  such  an 
important  thoroughfare.  Two  vehicles  can  pass 
without  difficulty,  but  it  is  well  for  them  not  to  rush 
by.  If  they  are  .in  a  hurry,  they  had  better  take 
either  Meadow  Street,  which  skirts  the  athletic  field, 
or  High  Street,  which  is  wide  and  oiled  and  designed 
for  heavy  traffic.  Tutors'  Lane  is  not  oiled,  and 


16  Tutors'  Lane 

heaven  forfend  that  it  ever  should  be,  for  its  foun 
dations  go  far  back  into  the  past,  farther  perhaps 
than  any  one  dreams.  No  less  a  person  than  old 
Mrs.  Baxter  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  it 
follows  the  course  of  an  old  Roman  road.  It  is 
incredible,  of  course,  and  opens  up  a  vista  of  pre- 
Columbian  discovery  more  astonishing  than  any 
to  be  found  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  but  Mrs.  Bax 
ter  was  a  noted  controversialist  in  her  day  and, 
true  or  false,  she  succeeded  in  handing  down  the 
story  to  the  present  generation. 

People  who  think  of  an  ordinary  row  of  city 
houses  have  no  conception  of  Faculty  Row.  For 
one  thing,  the  lots  are  of  widely  different  sizes. 
Some,  like  the  one  owned  by  the  Misses  Forbes, 
daughters  of  the  geologist,  are  modest  affairs  with 
forty-foot  fronts.  Others,  like  Dean  Norris's, 
cover  two  acres.  Those  built  before  1800  have 
their  birth-years  painted  carefully  over  their  door 
ways,  and  it  is  an  unwritten  law  that  younger  houses 
may  not  claim  this  privilege.  Many  are  sheltered 
by  box  hedges,  and  none  but  has  its  garden — in  which 
flowers  other  than  hollyhocks,  mignonette,  larkspur, 
stock,  and  bachelor's  buttons  are  considered  slightly 
nouveaux  venus. 

As  to  the  occupants  of  these  houses,  volumes 
many  times  the  size  of  this  one  might  be  written. 
Suffice  it  for  the  present,  however,  that  they  are 
quite  superior  to  the  general  indifference  of  the  out 
side  world,  and  that,  like  the  dwellers  in  Cranford, 
though  some  may  be  poor,  all  are  aristocratic. 


Tutors'  Lane  17 

To  Tom  Reynolds,  walking  along  Tutors'  Lane 
in  the  dusk  of  a  March  afternoon,  the  scene  was  con 
siderably  different  from  the  verdant  one  just 
sketched.  Instead  of  peeping  out  behind  their  holly 
hocks  and  vines,  the  houses  were  still  defensively 
wrapped  up  against  the  ice  which  besieged  their 
walls.  Storm  doors  could  not  yet  be  dispensed 
with,  and  here  and  there  some  practical  soul — doubt 
less  connected  with  the  Physics  Department — had 
by  means  of  a  railing  insured  himself  against  the 
painful  mortification  of  an  icy  step.  Walking  is 
never  good  in  Tutors'  Lane  during  the  winter. 
Cement  walks  are  not  laid,  and  temporary  boards 
smack  a  little  too  much  of  a  makeshift.  Arctics  are 
the  invariable  rule,  but  even  so  the  going  is  not  easy, 
and  it  is  particularly  bad  at  this  time  of  year,  for 
now  it  is  that  arctics,  which  never  seem  able  to  last 
through  a  winter,  suddenly  give  out  at  the  heel 
and  fill  with  mud  and  slush. 

Tom  walked  on  until  he  came  to  the  Dean's 
driveway,  and  then  he  turned  into  it.  During  his 
college  days  he  had  spent  a  considerable  amount  of 
time  at  the  Dean's  house,  and  now,  in  the  first  year 
of  his  Instructorship,  he  was  there  more  than  ever. 
His  own  home  in  Ephesus,  New  York,  being  at  the 
present  time  occupied  by  a  stepmother  for  whom  he 
had  no  particular  affection  and  a  father  whose 
interests  were  in  the  drygoods  rather  than  the 
scholastic  line,  he  scarcely  thought  of  himself  as  hav 
ing  a  home  other  than  that  made  for  him  by  the 
Dean's  wife.  It  was  true  that  there  was  an  older 


i8  Tutors'  Lane 

sister  whose  husband  was  a  lawyer  in  Omaha,  but 
she  had  never  approved  of  his  bringing  up,  and,  since 
she  was  convinced  that  he  had  been  spoiled  beyond 
repair,  their  separation  was  merciful.  At  Christ 
mas  the  family  exchanged  cheques,  and  Tom  duti 
fully  sent  what  the  Telegraph  Company  called  a 
"Yule  Tide  Message,"  tastefully  decorated  free  of 
charge.  But  there  family  ties  ended. 

They  had  really  ended  sixteen  years  ago  when 
the  nine-year-old  Tom  had  been  led  up  to  take  a 
terrified  look  at  his  mother's  dead  face  and  had  then 
been  allowed  to  escape  to  the  rear  of  the  house  for 
a  season  of  uncontrollable  weeping.  From  that 
time  on  until  five  years  later  when  he  came  in  con 
tact  with  Mr.  Hilton,  Instructor  in  English  at  the 
High  School,  he  had  led  the  life  of  a  "queer"  boy. 
Devoted  to  reading  and  content,  in  default  of  other 
youth  who  interested  him,  to  stay  by  himself,  he  was 
a  hopeless  enigma  to  his  father,  whose  memories  of 
youth,  strengthened  by  contemporary  examination 
of  his  "cash  boys,"  were  of  a  radically  different 
sort.  But  with  the  attainment  of  High  School  and 
Mr.  Hilton  the  world  changed.  For  the  first  time 
since  his  mother's  death  Tom  met  a  congenial  spirit. 
Mr.  Hilton  was  gay,  he  was  humorous,  he  noticed 
important  things  which  other  people  were  too  stupid 
to  notice  or  to  appreciate.  He  was  forever  having 
amusing  misadventures;  and  before  long  he  took 
Tom  off  with  him  for  week-end  walks,  and  they  had 
amusing  misadventures  together.  No  one  else  ex 
isted  for  Tom,  and  anything  he  suggested  became 


Tutors'  Lane  19 

law.  In  this  way  Tom  came  to  play  baseball  suffi 
ciently  well  to  be  allowed  in  his  senior  year  the 
privilege  of  standing  in  the  right  field  of  the  School 
team. 

Mr.  Hilton  was  a  Woodbridge  man,  and,  after 
earnest  discussion  with  Mr.  Reynolds,  he  obtained 
permission  for  Tom  to  go  to  Woodbridge.  The 
financial  problem  was  a  simple  one,  for  Tom  had 
awaiting  him  in  trust  a  comfortable  income  from 
his  mother's  estate,  and  having  him  away  would  be 
cheaper  for  Mr.  Reynolds.  Beginning  with  Sopho 
more  year,  therefore,  the  previously  dull  curriculum 
took  on  a  romantic  hue,  since  by  means  of  it  Ephe- 
sus  could  be  left  behind  forever.  Studying  became  a 
"stunt,"  and  he  swept  through  examination  after  ex 
amination  as  though  they  were  novels  or  ball  games, 
until  at  length  he  found  himself  at  Woodbridge. 

Tom's  college  life  after  the  first  year  had  been  as 
pleasant  as  college  life  ever  is.  At  the  start,  his 
career  was  like  that  of  most  boys  entering  Wood- 
bridge  from  a  high  school.  His  "funny"  clothes  and 
mildly  awkward  manners  indicated  that,  as  yet,  he 
hardly  spoke  the  same  language  as  his  more  fortu 
nate  classmates  who  had  been  privately  prepared  for 
their  higher  education.  He  had  heard  something, 
of  course,  as  everyone  has,  of  the  celebrated  dem 
ocratic  tendency  that  obtains  at  Woodbridge.  It 
was  disconcerting,  therefore,  to  be  eyed  by  these 
young  men  as  though  he  were  a  too  strange  bird 
who  had  somehow  wandered  into  the  zoo  proper  in 
stead  of  staying,  where  he  belonged,  in  the  aviary. 


2O  Tutors'  Lane 

He  had  been  possessed,  however,  with  the  desire 
to  "make  good,"  and  so  avoided  the  little  group 
of  cynics  that,  in  every  class,  leave  their  alma 
mater  with  gall  and  bitterness  in  their  hearts. 
As  it  was,  he  came  to  admire  the  happy,  well- 
dressed  majority.  There  was  an  easiness  of  man 
ner  about  them  that  charmed  him.  They  were 
reserved  and  did  not  dull  their  palms  with  en 
tertainment  of  each  new-hatch'd  comrade,  but  when 
they  did  accept  one  it  appeared  to  be  a  thoroughgo 
ing  performance.  They  were  the  jeunesse  doree; 
but  Tom  frankly  hoped  that  he  might  qualify  for 
something  as  fine. 

Tom  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  qualified,  and  in  the 
spring  of  his  Junior  year  he  had  been  awarded  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  a  successful  Woodbridge 
career — an  election  to  Star,  one  of  the  two  Senior 
Clubs. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  these  two 
Clubs.  Furthermore,  they  who  know  anything  at 
all  about  Woodbridge  know  about  them.  They 
know  well  enough,  without  any  reminder  here, 
that  an  election  to  either  is  the  first  prize  in  the 
college  social  life,  and  they  know,  futhermore,  that 
their  influence  extends  over  into  graduate  life, 
coloring  it  pleasantly  to  the  end  of  one's  days. 
The  reticence  which  the  members  of  the  Clubs  feel 
in  regard  to  them — a  reticence  found  highly  amus 
ing  by  outsiders — extends  to  the  Woodbridge  com 
munity,  and  there  is,  accordingly,  a  somewhat  form 
idable  atmosphere  about  them  which  is  vaguely  felt 


Tutors'  Lane  21 

by  all.  But  here  we  must  let  the  affair  rest.  They 
are  not  to  play  any  other,  part  in  our  story  than  to 
shed  their  benign  influence  over  the  hero,  and  we 
may  dismiss  them  except  for  an  occasional  inevi 
table  reference,  with  a  brief  statement.  When,  in 
his  Sophomore  year,  he  had  made  the  baseball  team, 
it  had  been  conceded  that  Tom's  chances  of  ^coming 
across"  were  good,  and  when,  later,  it  was  dis 
covered  that  he  read  books  not  prescribed  in  the 
college  courses,  he  was  "sure."  The  baseball,  how 
ever,  had  come  first,  for  it  is  true  at  Woodbridge,  as 
well  as  in  Ephesus,  that  baseball  adds  lustre  to 
letters.  Why  he  had  chosen  Star  rather  than  Grave 
— for  the  choice  had  been  given  him — is  a  matter 
so  intimately  connected  with  the  outstanding  char 
acteristics  of  the  two  Clubs  that  an  explanation 
would  promptly  lead  to  the  discussion  above  de 
clined.  Let  it  suffice,  therefore,  that  he  "went"  Star 
because  of  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  and  we  shall 
have  done  with  this  delicate  business. 

Then  the  war  had  come;  and  now,  after  two  years 
of  service  and  a  year  in  a  graduate  school,  Tom  was 
back,  an  infant  member  of  the  Faculty. 

Tom  loitered  up  the  walk  to  the  Dean's 
house  to  make  the  pleasure  of  his  arrival  the  greater. 
The  Norris  house,  a  somewhat  solemn  brown-stone 
structure  built  in  the  'thirties,  fascinated  him.  He 
found  it  impossible  to  stay  away  for  long;  and  now, 
as  he  rang  the  bell,  his  pulse  quickened  with  the 
thought  of  the  rooms  about  to  be  opened  to  him. 


II 


TOM  stepped  into  the  hall  and  threw  his  hat, 
muffler,  and  overcoat  upon  the  hall  bench. 
"Lovely  day,  isn't  it,  Norah?"  he  said  to  the 
maid  who  had  let  him  in,  receiving  her  "Yes,  Mr. 
'Reynolds"  with  a  smile  and  a  nod,  and  passing 
directly  into  the  library. 

"Why,  hello,  Tom,"  said  a  girl  on  the  sofa  fac 
ing  the  fireplace.  Before  her  was  a  tea  wagon  and 
she  was  at  present  pouring  a  cup  for  a  slightly  stiff 
person  in  knickerbockers. 

Tom  shook  hands  with  his  host,  lately  Dean  of 
Woodbridge  and  now,  in  the  absence  of  the  Presi 
dent,  acting  in  his  place.  He  then  turned  to  the 
first  gentleman,  who,  cup  in  hand,  was  making  slow 
backward  progress  to  his  seat.  "How  do  you  do?" 
Tom  said  with  a  slight  bow. 

"How  are  you,  Reynolds,"  the  other  replied, 
hardly  noticing  him. 

"Henry  and  father  have  just  come  back  from 
curling  and  they  say  it  is  perfectly  rotten,"  con 
tinued  the  girl  on  the  sofa.  "Let's  see,  Tom,  you 
take  one  lump,  don't  you?" 

He  declined  on  the  grounds  of  just  having  hacl 
tea  and  retiring  to  a  table  in  the  rear  of  the  tea 
group,  idly  picked  up  a  copy  of  the  London  Times 

22 


Tutors'  Lane  23 

Literary  Supplement  that  was  lying  on  it.  Henry, 
who  had  apparently  been  interrupted,  proceeded 
with  a  description  of  the  various  characters  that  had 
taken  part  in  the  curling. 

Tom's  interest  in  the  Times  was  not  very  great, 
but  his  interest  in  Henry  Whitman's  story  was  even 
less,  and  he  frankly  allowed  his  gaze  to  wander 
over  the  books  that  covered  the  walls  of  the  room. 
They  were  one  of  the  things  that  fascinated  him  in 
the  house.  They  extended  from  the  floor  to  the 
ceiling  and  encircled  the  entire  room,  yielding  only 
to  the  wide,  high  fireplace  and  the  five  windows.  A 
small  section  encased  in  glass  housed  a  few  of  the 
Dean's  first  editions  and  presentation  copies,  but 
Tom  rather  resented  it,  breaking  as  it  did  the  har 
mony  of  the  whole  and  pulling  the  eye  to  it  with 
its  reflecting  panes.  He  had  from  the  first  made 
the  mental  reservation  that,  were  the  house  his,  he 
should  take  away  that  glass. 

The  dark  blue  velours  sofa  upon  which  Mary 
Norris  was  sitting,  facing  the  fire,  he  called  "The 
Bosom  of  the  Norris  Family,"  and  when  there  were 
no  heavy  people  like  Henry  Whitman  about,  he 
would  occasionally  throw  himself  upon  it,  carefully 
pointing  out  each  time  the  pretty  significance  of  his 
act.  Behind  the  Bosom  was  a  large  and  weighty 
desk  covered  with  a  multitude  of  personal  letters, 
belonging  for  the  most  part  to  Mrs.  Norris,  a 
cheque-book  open  and  face  down  in  mute  obeisance 
to  the  blotter,  newspaper  clippings,  spectacle  cases, 
scissors,  and  ash  trays.  In  a  neighbouring  corner 


24  Tutors'  Lane 

stood  a  table  with  imperfectly  stacked  current  maga 
zines,  a  work  basket  filled  with  knitting,  and  a  lamp 
crowned  by  a  broad  shade  of  silk  with  threads  hang 
ing  from  it,  which,  when  twirled,  stood  out  and 
looked  like  a  miniature  wheat  field  with  the  wind 
running  through  it.  The  lamp  on  the  table  by 
which  Tom  was  sitting  was  an  old-fashioned  silver 
affair  but  recently  converted  to  electricity.  Its  shade 
was  high  and  dignified,  and  it  had  been  discovered 
that  when  lifted  from  its  place  it  could  be  worn  as  a 
turban. 

The  fireplace  carried  on  its  mantel  a  running 
commentary  upon  the  changing  details  of  family  in 
terest.  At  present,  flanking  the  little  French  clock 
upon  its  centre  was  a  variety  of  old  glass,  Eighteenth 
Century  rum  and  whiskey  flasks  recently  collected 
by  Mrs.  Norris.  There  were,  additionally,  a  por 
celain  image  of  two  farmers,  dos  a  dos,  one  with 
rosy  cheeks  and  flashing  eye  labelled  "water,"  and 
the  other,  haggard  and  ill-favoured,  labelled  "gin"; 
also  a  brace  of  saturnine  china  cats.  Above  the 
mantel  stretched  an  expanse  of  oak  panelling  which 
supported  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Norris's  great-great 
grandfather  in  a  heavy  gilt  frame.  The  old  gentle 
man,  who  looked  amiably  out  from  his  starched 
neckcloth,  had  been  a  delegate  to  the  Continental 
Congress  and  a  jurist  of  distinction.  Beside  him  on 
a  table  were  some  papers,  obviously  of  the  first  im 
portance,  for  they  were  plastered  with  seals,  a  copy 
of  Coke  on  Lyttleton,  and  an  inkpot  with  a  quill 
sticking  out  of  it.  His  arm  was  lying  lightly  on  the 


Tutors'  Lane  25 

table,  his  cherubic  face  smiling  back  at  its  observer 
wherever  he  stood;  and  Tom  imagined  that  his  next 
move  would  be,  after  the  manner  of  his  great-great- 
granddaughter,  to  rise  with  a  sweep  and  tip  over  the 
inkpot. 

The  colour  in  the  room  was  chiefly  contributed 
by  the  deep  red  curtains  which  hung  beside  the 
windows  and  which  brought  out  and  emphasized 
each  object  of  kindred  colour  in  the  room.  In  this 
way  were  made  conspicuous  the  turban-like  shade, 
a  lacquered  calendar  rest  upon  the  desk,  a  footstool, 
and  even  the  British  Colonies  on  a  globe  hiding 
unobtrusively  in  a  corner.  The  heavy  Persian  rugs 
echoed  the  note  so  generously  that  the  books  with 
reddish  bindings  stood  out  from  their  fellows  and 
played  their  part  in  giving  to  the  whole  a  richness 
that  made  the  room  remarkable. 

Tom  gazed  at  the  group  before  him.  Henry 
Whitman,  Assistant  Professor  of  Economics  at 
thirty,  a  member  of  Grave,  was  telling  a  story  of 
an  Italian  in  Whitmanville  who,  when  he  curled, 
used  only  the  broadest  Scotch.  When  Tom  had 
met  Henry  in  his  ingenuous  days  he  threatened  to 
be  overwhelmed  by  the  calm  indifference  of  Henry's 
manner.  The  Whitman  Air,  inherited  from  a  line 
of  distinguished  forebears,  all  but  swamped  him. 
It  was  as  perfect  and  finished  as  some  smooth  old 
bit  of  jade,  and  as  hard;  a  "piece"  to  be  carefully 
handled,  admirable  only  to  the  initiated.  Tom  had 
not  yet,  in  the  course  of  his  initiation,  come  to  find 
it  admirable,  although  he  quite  appreciated  its  au- 


26  Tutors'  Lane 

thenticity.  Harry's  father,  of  the  same  name,  had 
been  one  of  the  College's  chief  luminaries  in  the 
preceding  Administration,  known  wherever  Political 
Economy,  as  such,  was  known.  His  father  before 
him  had  produced  the  Whitman  Woollen  Mills, 
which  supported  Whitmanville,  and  though  they 
were  at  present  in  the  hands  of  an  uncle  and  various 
cousins,  their  beneficent  influence  was  obviously  felt 
by  Henry.  Everything  about  him  suggested  com 
fort  and  nourishment.  There  was  in  his  eye  a  look 
which  implied  intimacy  with  beagle-hunting  in  Der 
byshire,  and  the  way  he  used  his  hands  positively 
suggested  candle  light  at  dinner.  The  knicker 
bockers  that  he  wore  gave  out  a  delightful  heath 
ery  smell,  a  smell  which  is  at  its  best  when  mingled, 
as  at  present,  with  the  smell  of  superior  pipe  tobacco. 
His  stockings  would  naturally  be  objects  of  curiosity 
to  anyone  familiar  with  the  Whitman  Mills,  just  as 
the  pearls  around  the  neck  of  a  famous  jeweller's 
wife  would  be,  or  the  soap  in  the  tub  of  a  famous 
soap-maker.  They  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  ex 
cellent  stockings  of  the  heaviest,  woolliest  kind,  and 
Whitman  had  bought  them  a  year  and  a  half  ago 
in  Scotland,  whither  he  had  gone  after  his  wife's 
death.  He  still  wore  a  mourning  band  about  his  arm 
in  her  honour,  and  a  black  knitted  tie;  and  there 
was  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  continue 
to  do  so  another  year  and  a  half.  For  the 
Whitmans  always  had  mourned  hard. 

The  girl  on  the  sofa  was  a  thoroughly  healthy 
person  of  twenty-four.     She  played  excellent  female 


Tutors'  Lane  27 

tennis,  and  her  golf  was  better  than  that  of  half 
of  the  male  members  at  the  club.  Yet  she  had  none 
of  the  mannish  mannerisms  that  so  often  accom 
pany  an  "athletic"  girl.  At  the  present  time  she 
was  submitting  herself  to  a  rigorous  course  in 
"housekeeping,"  majoring  in  cooking  and  minoring 
in  accounting,  and  she  had  taught  Sunday  School 
ever  since  she  had  been  graduated  from  Miss  Ham 
mond's  School  at  Mill  Rock  some  six  years  ago. 
People  instinctively  liked  her  unless  they  were  bored 
by  obvious  wholesomeness.  And  although  no  one 
ever  thought  of  her  as  being  particularly  pretty — 
she  was  somewhat  too  dumpy  to  be  thought  that — 
people  noticed  her  hair,  which  was  a  most  fashion 
able  shade  of  red.  Then,  of  course,  in  as  much 
as  she  had  Mrs.  Norris  for  a  mother,  one  could 
never  be  entirely  sure  that  she  might  not  burst  forth 
in  some  altogether  unexpected  and  delightful  manner. 
Her  impromptu  bata.ille  des  fleurs,  for  example,  was 
still  remembered  in  Woodbridge  although  it  took 
place  nearly  sixteen  years  ago.  Somewhere  her 
attention  had  been  caught  by  the  picture  of  a  cherub, 
or  possibly  seraph,  perched  on  a  cloud  and  pouring 
from  a  cornucopia  great  masses  of  flowers  upon  the 
delighted  earth.  The  idea  seemed  such  a  lovely  one 
that  when,  in  the  spring,  her  mother  gave  a  card 
party  out  on  the  terrace,  she  determined  to  give  the 
ladies  a  delightful  surprise.  For  weeks  before  it 
she  despoiled  the  garden,  keeping  her  plans  miracu 
lously  secret,  and  storing  her  treasures  away  in  a 
waste-basket,  in  lieu  of  the  cornucopia.  And  then, 


28  Tutors'  Lane 

when  the  ladies  were  twittering  away  happily  be 
neath,  she  stepped  out  upon  her  porch  clad  only  in 
a  Liberty  scarf  borrowed  from  her  mother's  ward 
robe — the  young  creature  in  the  picture  confined  it 
self  to  a  ribony  dress  which  floated  charmingly 
about  it — and  discharged  her  flowers.  She  was  pre 
pared  for  astonishment  in  her  audience,  and  her  re 
ception  was  all  she  could  ask;  but  what  she  was  not 
prepared  for  was  the  insidious  decay  which  had  set 
in  among  the  blooms,  and  which  robbed  them  en 
tirely  of  their  natural  colour  and  fragrance,  trans 
forming  them  into  a  composition  recognized  by  polite 
people  only  upon  their  lawns.  It  had  been  Mary's 
first  encounter  with  the  baffling  thaumaturgy  of 
chemistry;  and  to  the  end  of  her  days  her  confidence 
in  it  was  never  wholly  restored. 

Henry  Whitman  at  last  finished  his  story  and  rose 
to  go.  The  Dean,  who  was  a  genial  soul,  and  who, 
with  his  generous  embonpoint  and  his  knickers, 
looked  at  present  a  little  like  Mr.  Pickwick,  regarded 
him  affectionately.  He  had  retired  from  the  college 
two  years  before,  but  upon  the  President's  departure 
for  Europe  on  a  six  months'  leave,  he  had  been  called 
from  retirement  to  act  in  his  place  because  of  the 
great  respect  the  College  had  for  his  temperate 
judgment,  a  quality  at  that  time  particularly  useful 
in  college  affairs,  stirred  as  they  were  by  the  con 
tentions  of  the  advocates  of  a  larger  Woodbridge. 
It  was  the  Dean's  duty  to  keep  these  malcontents, 
these  radicals — some  of  whom  were  powerful — in 
their  places.  Quality  not  quantity  had  ever  been  the 


Tutors'  Lane  29 

Woodbridge  cry,  and  it  should  remain  so  as  long  as 
he  had  any  power.  In  other  respects,  however, 
he  was  as  gentle  as  one  could  well  be.  In  the  matter 
of  motoring,  for  example,  he  was  so  gentle  that  to 
the  untutored  eye  he  might  seem  almost  timid.  He 
had  viewed  the  rise  of  the  motor  car  with  all  the 
misgivings  of  a  lover  of  the  Old  Ways,  long  refus 
ing  to  accompany  his  wife  on  her  hectic  flights,  but 
at  last  he  had  consented  to  buy  an  electric.  For 
three  dreadful  weeks  he  ran  it  in  agony  or  appre 
hension.  It  was  not  that  he  might  run  into  people: 
there  was  no  danger  there,  for  even  if  he  had  bumped 
into  some  one,  the  damage  would  have  been  only 
very  trifling.  No,  the  terrible  thought  was  what 
the  reckless  people  might  do  who  would  crash  into 
him.  So  at  the  end  of  the  three  weeks  he  aban 
doned  the  lever  and,  bringing  Murdock  in  from  the 
stable,  definitely  transformed  him  into  his  chauffeur. 
The  picture  that  he  presented  was,  he  realized,  some 
what  sedate,  but  at  least  he  was  no  longer  talcing 
foolhardy  chances,  and  he  could  now,  furthermore, 
see  something  as  he  went  along.  "When  are  you 
expecting  Nancy?"  he  asked  Henry. 

"Oh,  I  supposed  Mary  had  told  you.  Why,  she 
is  coming  day  after  tomorrow.  Henry  Third  is 
very  much  excited.  He  has  been  making  a  collec 
tion  for  her  as  a  present.  I  didn't  know  anything 
about  it  until  the  other  day  when  Annie  told  me. 
It  seems  that  he  has  been  very  much  impressed  by  a 
postal  card  from  his  Aunt  Nancy  showing  a  Cali 
fornia  orange  grove,  and  so  he  has  been  collecting 


30  Tutors'  Lane 

orange  pips  ever  since !  He  now  has  over 
ninety  and  he  is  afraid  she  will  arrive  before  he  can 
get  a  hundred.  It  seems  to  be  a  rule  of  the  collec 
tion  that  his  pips  can  only  be  taken  from  oranges 
he's  eaten,  and  as  he  only  gets  one  a  day  at  his 
breakfast,  there  is  no  help  for  him." 

"Oh,  for  heaven's  sake,  Henry,  send  him  up  here 
and  I'll  let  him  eat  out  his  hundred,"  said  Mary. 

"Fine  person  you  are,"  laughed  Whitman,  "ruin 
ing  my  son's  good  habits." 

They  had  passed  out  into  the  hall  when  the  bell 
rang  violently  two  or  three  times. 

"That  must  be  mamma,"  said  Mary,  and  going  to 
the  door,  she  opened  it  for  a  majestic  lady  who 
swept  into  the  room,  talking  volubly  as  she  began 
peeling  off  the  shawls  and  capes  in  which  she  was 
wrapped. 

"Why,  Henry,  dear,  what  on  earth  are  you  doing 
here?  You  never  come  to  see  us  any  more,  and  I  am 
so  anxious,  too,  to  ask  you  all  about  the  stabilized 
dollar  and  these  new  vitamines.  Susan!"  she  called 
suddenly  in  the  general  direction  of  the  upper  floors. 
Then,  addressing  no  one  in  particular,  "I  must  find 
out  about  the  salted  almonds  that  the  Dean  asked 
for  last  night,"  and  she  started  for  the  kitchen. 

"I  ordered  them  this  morning,  Gumgum,  myself, 
when  I  was  ordering  everything  else.  I  had  them 
on  my  list." 

"You  did?"  and  Mrs.  Norris  burst  into  the  most 
contagious  laughter.  "Tom,  I  wish  you'd  stop  my 


Tutors'  Lane  31 

daughter  calling  me  that  horrid  name.  It's  disgust 
ing.  I'm  going  to  call  her  'Snuffles.'  ' 

"I  really  must  go,  Aunt  Helen,"  said  Whitman, 
starting  for  the  door.  The  "Aunt"  was  a  heritage 
of  an  earlier  and  more  innocent  day  and  not  an 
indication  of  blood  relationship.  "Uncle  Julian" 
had,  however,  been  allowed  to  lapse,  upon  Henry's 
accession  to  the  Woodbridge  Faculty. 

"Oh  dear,"  replied  Mrs.  Norris.  "Well,  I'm 
coming  down  to  see  Nancy  as  soon  as  she  gets  back, 
and  then  you've  got  to  come  up  here  for  dinner.  It 
will  be  such  a  relief  having  her  here  for  the  party. 
And  now,"  she  added,  putting  her  arm  through 
Tom's,  "I  must  have  a  little  talk  with  Tom.  I  sus 
pect  he  needs  a  pill,  and  I'm  going  to  give  it  to  him. 
Come  here,  Tommy,  dear,  and  let  me  look  at  you," 
and  she  pulled  him  back  into  the  library. 


Ill 


MRS.  NORRIS  was  about  to  force  Tom 
down  upon  the  Bosom  when  her  eye  was 
caught  by  the  cheque-book  on  the  table. 
"Oh,  land,"  she  exclaimed,  "why  didn't  I  give  Henry 
his  cheque!  I've  owed  him  for  those  German 
Socialist  books  he  got  me  for  I  don't  know  how 
long,  and  here  I've  forgotten  to  give  it  to  him.  I 
must  send  Susan  after  him  with  it  right  away,"  and 
going  over  to  a  bell  by  the  fireplace,  she  pushed  it 
until  Susan  appeared.  Then,  looking  at  Tom,  with 
her  sweetest  smile  she  asked,  in  her  quietest  voice, 
"Why  don't  you  like  Henry?" 

"Why,  I  don't  mind  Henry." 

"Oh,  come  now,  Tommy."  She  moved  over  to 
"her"  chair  under  the  yellow  lamp  and,  picking  up 
the  knitting  immediately  set  the  needles  flying  and 
clicking  over  one  another.  "You  know  you  can't 
bear  him.  He  is  a  little  cut  and  dried — that's  the 
trouble  with  him,  I  think — but  then,  as  far  as  I  can 
make  out,  you  people  in  the  classics  and  literatures 
are  just  as  bad." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Norris." 

"You  are  too.  You  are  perfectly  dreadful. 
Why,  I  can  remember  as  well  as  anything,  old  Pro 
fessor  Packard  standing  up  before  that  fireplace  and 

32 


Tutors'  Lane  33 

saying,  'Helen,'  says  he,  'no  gentleman  is  worthy  the 
name  who  doesn't  know  his  Horace.'  'Stuff,'  says 
I,  'that's  utter  nonsense.  You  might  as  well  say 
a  gentlemen  is  not  worthy  of  the  name  unless  he 

knows  his  French  for  "fiddle-dee-dee" like  the 

Red  Queen,'  "  and  still  knitting  busily,  she  rocked 
with  laughter. 

Tom  dropped  into  a  chair  beside  her,  threw  one 
leg  over  the  arm,  and,  pipe  in  hand,  gazed  at  her 
affectionately.  She  was  about  the  age  his  own 
mother  would  have  been,  he  thought,  in  the  imme 
diate  neighbourhood  of  sixty.  But  his  own  mother, 
who  he  knew  had  become  reconciled  to  the  life  of 
Ephesus,  could  never  have  arrived  at  sixty  with  the 
imperious  disregard  for  convention  that  was  so  per 
fectly  Mrs.  Norris's.  Upon  her  face  at  present,  as 
she  looked  down  at  her  knitting,  was  a  smiling 
benignity  that  would  have  recommended  itself  to  the 
Virgin  at  Chartres;  and  at  the  same  time  her  hair — 
what  modest  growth  there  was  left — was  uncurling 
itself  from  behind  and  threatening  to  pull  down  the 
whole  structure  after  it.  It  was  perfect,  Tom  told 
himself,  and  were  he  a  sculptor  commissioned  to 
make  her  bust,  he  would  do  her  just  like  that. 

"Nancy,  I  sometimes  think,  is  the  worst  person  in 
the  world  to  look  after  Henry.  It's  bad  for  her 
and  bad  for  him.  What  he  ought  to  do  is  to  go  out 
and  get  another  wife  and  leave  Nancy  alone  to  do 
as  she  pleases.  I  have  a  good  mind  to  take  her 
with  me  to  Athens  next  winter  myself.  What  with 
Mrs.  Robert  Lee-Satterlee  taking  her  to  California 


34  Tutors'  Lane 

this   winter    and   my   taking   her    to    Athens  next, 

Henry  will  have  to  get  married." 

There  had  been  rumours  abroad  lately  that  Henry 
had  about  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion  himself 
and  that  Mary  Norris  was  receiving  serious  consider 
ation  as  a  candidate,  but  there  was  nothing  in  Mrs. 
Norris's  manner  that  suggested  a  knowledge  of  it, 
and  Tom  correctly  concluded  that  it  was  just  another 
of  those  idle  rumours  that  live  their  luxurious  day 
in  Faculty  Row. 

"Oh,  my  no,"  said  Tom,  "that  wouldn't  do  at  all. 
Why,  another  marriage  would  completely  upset 
Henry's  System  that  he's  always  talking  so  much 
about.  It's  almost  certain  she  couldn't  stand  it, 
you  know,  and  then  where  would  Henry  be?  Sup 
pose,  for  example,  that  she  forgot  to  have  his  senna 
tea  for  him  at  night  or  didn't  care  about  playing 
cribbage  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour  after  dinner? 
Now  Nancy,  apparently,  gives  perfect  satisfaction. 
She  adores  little  Henry  and  she  manages  the  house 
so  well  that  there  isn't  a  single  thing  to  bother  big 
Henry.  But  they  say — " 

"Stop  it,  Tommy.  You've  been  listening  again 
to  that  horrid  old  Mrs.  Conover.  Her  husband 
was  a  perfect  old  Scrooge,  and  now  that  she's  rid 
of  him,  poor  dear,  she  feels  that  she's  got  to  expand 

and  make  up  for  lost  time "     Her  voice,  which 

had  become  more  and  more  drowsy,  as  if  bored  with 
what  it  had  to  say,  trailed  off  and  died.  Then,  with 
renewed  interest,  she  exclaimed,  "I  wonder  what 
they  are  going  to  do  about  Poland?" 


Tutors'  Lane  35 

Tom  had  learned  that  an  answer  to  these  startling 
questions  and  comments  of  Mrs.  Norris  was  not 
required.  There  was  no  harm,  however,  in  saying 
the  first  thing  that  came  into  one's  head,  as  in  a 
psychological  test,  and  he  accordingly  now  answered, 
"Paderewski." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Norris  quietly.  Then  brighten 
ing  up:  "How  is  your  work  going,  Tommy?" 

"Why,  it's  going  pretty  well." 

"They  get  rather  difficult  about  this  time  of  year, 
don't  they?" 

"They  do!  Oh  my,  I've  had  an  awful  time  with 
them  lately.  I've  muffed  Carlyle  and  Transcenp 
dentalism  completely." 

"Oh,  no!  Why  that's  Emerson  and  all  those 
Concord  people.  Still,  I  suppose  Louisa  Alcott  is 
getting  a  little  old-fashioned." 

"You  should  have  seen  the  set  of  papers  I  got 
back  today.  There  it  was,  all  that  I  had  given 
them,  in  great  heavy  undigested  lumps — " 

"Like  footballs,"  suggested  Mrs.  Norris. 

"Once  I  was  funny  with  them,"  went  on  Tom, 
"and  I  may  say  that  I  was  properly  punished.  They 
put  it  all  down  in  their  notebooks  and  then  mixed  it 
up  with  everything  they  shouldn't  have  mixed  it  up 
with — and  I  shall  never  be  funny  again." 

"I  shall  give  you  at  least  two  grains " 

"Then  there  are  the  young  men  who  get  off  all  the 
stale  old  facts  and  expect  an  A.  One  of  them  came 
to  me  yesterday,  when  I  had  given  him  a  C,  and 
whined  around  my  desk  until  I  finally  told  him  I  did 


36  Tutors'  Lane 

not  consider  his  performance  remarkable  in  a  young 
man  of  eighteen,  however  much  so  it  might  be  in  a 
poll  parrot  of  the  same  age." 

"Now  that  was  wrong.  Were  there  other  boys 
around?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  you  simply  must  not  go  do  that  kind  of 
thing.  They'll  hate  it." 

"I  know  it  was  wrong,  but  I  am  rather  amused 
by  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  can  stand  anything  but 
the  ones  who  think  they  can  fool  me  with  a  lot  of  em 
broidery  and  gas.  They're  insulting " 

"Why,  Tommy,  you  were  doing  the  same  thing 
yourself  only  three  or  four  years  ago.  You  mustn't 
get  so  snufty  so  soon." 

"Of  course,  at  times  when  I've  had  a  good  reci 
tation  I  wouldn't  trade  places  with  anyone.  It's  a 
kind  of  ecstasy.  It's  like  all  sorts  of  rushing,  excit 
ing  things — like  a  high  tide,  or  a  close  race,  or  a 
fire;  really  it  is.  Then  you  go  to  the  other  extreme 
and  you  ask  yourself  what  on  earth  is  the  use  of  so 
futile  a  business,  and  what  right  has  a  young  man 
with  anything  to  him  whatever  to  waste  his  time 
with  it.  Better  go  and  make  bird  cages  or  hair  nets 
or — or — hot  water  bags,  and  make  some  money. 
When  I  feel  that  way  I  sometimes  go  out  along  the 
ridge,  just  at  dusk,  you  know,  or  into  the  woods — " 

"You  do?  Why,  I  think  that's  awfully  romantic 
of  you;  like  Chateaubriand,  you  know."  Then, 
dreamily,  "He  used  to  go  out  and  lean  on  a  pedestal 
and  let  the  moon  shine  down  on  him  through  the 


Tutors'  Lane  37 

trees.     I  think  Nancy  is  a  little  that  way  herself." 

There  was  a  pause,  during  which  the  young  edu 
cator's  difficulties  were  brushed  aside. 

"Do  you  realize  that  I  haven't  seen  Nancy  since 
leaving  college?" 

"Why,  that's  strange." 

"No:  you  see  she  had  left  for  the  west  before 
college  opened  in  the  fall,  and  I  hadn't  been  back  be 
tween  then  and  the  time  I  graduated.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  last  time  I  saw  her  was  in  this  house. 
It  was  the  night  of  our  Senior  Prom.  I  took  Mary, 
you  know,  and  Teddy  Roberts  took  Nancy,  and 
when  it  was  over  we  came  in  here  and  had  a  cooky 
contest  in  the  kitchen.  Nancy  could  put  a  whole  one 
of  those  gingersnaps  you  always  have  into  her 
mouth  without  breaking  it." 

"Oh  dear.  I'm  afraid  she  has  the  Billings 
mouth." 

"We  then  got  to  talking  about  growing  mous 
taches,  and  Nancy  bet  Teddy  she  could  grow  one 
before  he  could." 

"How  disgusting!  That's  what  comes  of  all  this 
emancipation.  Marcus  Aurelius  has  a  lot  to  say 
about  it.  I  must  look  that  up.  Did  she  win?" 

"As  I  remember  it,  she  was  in  a  fair  way  to,  but 
the  war  came  along,  and  we  left  before  it  could  be 
settled." 

Mrs.  Norris  stopped  knitting  and  looked  at  Tom 
with  amused  curiosity  through  her  tortoise-shell 
spectacles,  which  had  slid  rather  farther  down  her 
nose  than  usual.  "I  forget.  Didn't  you  use  to  see 


38  Tutors'  Lane 

a  good  deal  of  Nancy  at  one   time?"   she   asked. 

"Only  just  here,"  he  replied. 

"Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Norris,  and  went  on  with  her 
work. 

At  this  point  the  Dean  entered,  dressed  for  dinner. 

"Oh  dear,  I'm  not  ready  at  all,"  cried  Mrs.  Nor 
ris,  jumping  up;  and  her  knitting,  worsted,  and  bag 
spilled  out  upon  the  floor.  "Tommy,  tell  Norah  to 
put  on  a  plate  for  you." 

"I  can't  really,  Mrs.  Norris.  This  is  Thursday 
night,  you  see,  and  I'm  going  around  to  the  Club." 
Then  as  his  hostess  disappeared  up  the  stairs,  he 
hurried  into  his  overcoat  and,  indulging  in  only  a 
small  fraction  of  his  usual  recessional  with  the  Dean, 
he  was  gone. 

Outside,  walking  down  the  long  driveway  that 
led  to  Tutors'  Lane,  Tom  slowed  his  pace.  Over 
head,  Betelgeuse  was  making  the  most  of  its  recent 
publicity,  unobstructed  by  vagrant  clouds.  Tom 
gazed  up  at  it  with  a  certain  air  of  proprietorship. 
He  had  known  Betelgeuse  years  ago  and  personally 
had  always  preferred  its  neighbour  Rigel,  which  had 
received  no  publicity  at  all.  As  a  small  boy  some 
one  had  given  him  a  Handbook  of  the  Stars,  with 
diagrams  of  the  constellations  on  one  page  and 
chatty  notes  about  them  opposite.  He  had  lain  on 
his  back  out  in  the  fields,  with  opera  glasses  to  sweep 
the  heavens  and  a  flashlight  to  sweep  the  diagrams 
until  he  had  reconciled  the  two.  This  had  been  in 
the  summer,  and  although  his  observations  had  ex 
tended  to  the  autumn  stars,  the  winter  constellations 


Tutors'  Lane  39 

had  suffered.  Still,  he  knew  the  great  ones  and, 
weather  permitting,  he  would  gaze  upon  them  and 
their  neighbours  with  awe,  the  greater,  perhaps,  for 
his  unfamiliarity  with  their  diagrams. 

Tom  occasionally  gave  parlour  lessons  in  astron 
omy,  and  he  had  given  one  to  Nancy  on  the  night  of 
his  Senior  Prom,  the  night  of  the  cooky  contest. 
He  had  looked  out  and  seen  that  the  summer  stars 
were  up,  and  had  spoken  of  it,  to  the  boredom  of 
Mary  and  Teddy  Roberts.  But  Nancy  wanted 
Scorpio  pointed  out,  and  from  Scorpio  they  natur 
ally  progressed  to  the  others  until  Nancy  sneezed 
and  the  kitchen  window  had  to  be  shut.  Then,  as 
it  was  getting  light  anyway  and  the  waffles  were 
ready,  they  stopped  the  lesson.  Tom,  however, 
with  the  true  teacher's  instinct,  had  sent  her  a  copy 
of  his  Handbook  af  the  Stars,  and  at  his  Training 
Camp  he  had  received  a  note  of  thanks.  It  was  the 
only  note  he  had  ever  received  from  her,  and  Ee 
found  it  remarkable.  She  had  thanked  him  without 
the  barrage  of  gratitude  usual  among  young  ladies 
on  such  occasions.  There  had  been  something  mas 
culine  in  the  directness  of  it,  and  yet  there  was  no 
doubt  that  she  had  been  pleased.  In  closing,  she 
looked  forward  to  seeing  him  back  at  Woodbridge 
when  the  war  was  over.  There  had  been  no  fine 
writing  about  his  Going  to  the  Flag.  Tom  had 
been  impressed  by  the  amount  left  unsaid,  and  he  had 
saved  the  letter  until,  in  moving  about,  it  had  been 
lost.  He  was  annoyed  when  he  missed  it,  but  on 
second  thought  he  wondered  if  it  were  not  just  as 


40  Tutors'  Lane 

well.     For,  on  later  inspection,  it  might  not  have 

proved  so  remarkable,  after  all. 

Well,  the  war  was  now  over,  and  he  was  back  at 
Woodbridge.  It  would  be  very  pleasant  indeed  if 
she  had  gone  ahead  as  she  gave  promise  of  doing; 
and  why  in  the  world  shouldn't  she?  When  he  was 
in  college  Nancy  had  been  admittedly  the  first  of 
Woodbridge  young  ladies.  To  take  her  to  a  dance 
was  to  have  the  ultimate  in  good  times,  there  was  no 
need  to  worry  about  her  getting  "stuck,"  and  in  ad 
dition  to  the  thrill  of  taking  a  popular  girl  one  could 
enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  a  stag.  One  could  flit 
from  flower  to  flower  until  surfeited  with  beauty  and 
then  retire  for  a  smoke  or  other  innocent  diversion 
without  the  haunting  fear  that  possibly  Dick  or  Bill 
was  circling  around  and  around  in  ever-deepening 
gloom  with  one's  elected  for  the  night.  Nancy  had 
permantly  impressed  herself  upon  the  imagination  of 
discerning  Woodbridge  youth,  and  it  was  hardly  ex 
travagant  that  Tom  should  look  forward  to  her  re 
turn. 

Let  it,  therefore,  without  further  evasion,  be 
stated  at  once  that  he  did  look  forward  to  her  re 
turn. 


IV 


NANCY    WHITMAN    arrived    at    Wood- 
bridge  Center  as  planned,  and  her  brother 
and  nephew  were  at  the  station  to  meet 
her,    the    latter   with    his    collection    of    ninety-six 
orange  pips  in  a  candy  box. 

In  describing  Juliet  it  will  be  remembered  that  the 
author  said  nothing  about  her  colour  or  dimensions, 
but  described  her  indirectly,  and  succeeding  genera- 
ations  have  had  their  attention  called  to  the  merit  of 
the  performance.  We  know,  for  example,  that  she 
taught  the  candles  to  burn  bright,  and,  furthermore, 
that  she  seemed  to  hang  upon  the  cheek  of  night  like 
a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's  ear — most  probably  a 
pearl.  So,  in  describing  Nancy,  perhaps  it  would  be 
effective  to  point  out  that  the  snow  began  thawing  as 
soon  as  she  arrived,  that  the  motor  which  carried  her 
home  from  the  station  purred  along  without  the 
"knock"  that  had  been  troubling  it,  and  that  Tutors' 
Lane  was  less  bumpy  as  they  passed  over  it.  But 
such  a  description,  being  dangerously  near  burlesque, 
however  refined  and  genteel,  must  not  be  thought  of 
for  a  moment  in  connection  with  a  prominent  resi 
dent  of  Tutors'  Lane.  It  is  something  of  a  pity, 
nevertheless,  that  it  must  be  given  up,  for  Nancy  was 
not  particularly  pretty,  as  young  men  nowadays 

41 


42  Tutors'  Lane 

measure  beauty,  and  were  it  possible,  the  truth  might 
have  been  hidden.  She  was  something  too  elfish — 
and  then  there  was  the  Billings  mouth  already  men 
tioned.  Gertrude  Ellis,  who  spent  much  of  her  time 
with  her  aunt  in  New  York  and  who  had  a  proper 
care  for  her  person,  thought  it  a  ridiculous  pose  for 
Nancy  not  to  have  something  done  about  her 
freckles.  It  was  such  a  simple  matter  nowadays  to 
have  them  removed  that  obviously  only  a  poseuse 
would  tolerate  them.  Still,  men  were  so  unobserv- 
ing  about  things  that  they  didn't  seem  to  mind  them 
at  all,  and  Gertrude  got  nowhere  when  she  once  tried 
to  discuss  Nancy  with  a  senior. 

"Oh,  Nancy  is  so  wonderful  that  she  could  look 
like  a  leopard  and  people  wouldn't  care,"  he  had 
said.  "It's  funny  about  her,  isn't  it?  She's  not 
good  looking,  and  yet  she's  so  nice  everyone's  crazy 
about  her.  You  have  to  hand  it  to  a  girl  that's  like 
that." 

Henry  Third,  or  Harry,  as  everyone  but  his 
father  called  him,  had  immediately  given  his  collec 
tion  and  been  rewarded.  He  had  on  his  best  suit 
for  the  occasion  and  the  tie  his  aunt  had  sent  him  on 
his  seventh  and  latest  birthday.  He  was  a  hand 
some,  sturdy  boy,  and  his  father  expected  a  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  key  of  him  and  an  enthusiasm  for  Marx  and 
John  Stuart  Mill.  His  aunt's  plans  were  vague,  but 
altogether  different.  At  present  she  was  inclined  to 
favour  the  family  business,  with  the  understanding 
that  when  he  was  established  at  its  head  he  should 
give  a  beautiful  chapel  with  a  Magdalen  tower  to 


Tutors'  Lane  43 

the  College.  His  own  goal  was  the  Woodbridge 
football  team  and,  after  that,  a  locomotive  on  the 
run  to  New  York. 

They  were  met  at  the  door  by  Annie,  Harry's 
nurse,  and  by  Clarence,  Harry's  Airedale.  Clar 
ence,  who  immediately  dominated  the  scene,  render 
ing  Nancy's  greeting  to  Annie  vain  and  perfunctory, 
was  a  three-year-old  with  a  frivolity  of  manner  that 
ill  became  his  senescent  phiz.  Upon  its  grizzled  ex 
panse  there  would  pass  in  amazing  succession  the 
whole  range  of  canine  passion,  rage,  love,  urbanity, 
shame,  drollery,  ennui,  and,  most  frequent  of  all, 
curiosity.  At  present  all  his  energy  was  devoted 
to  expressing  unmitigated  pleasure,  the  dignity  of 
which  exhibition  was  continually  being  marred  by 
sliding  rugs.  But  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  didn't 
care  a  rap  for  his  lost  dignity.  His  mistress  was 
back  after  an  unconscionable  absence,  and  there  was 
every  reason  to  believe  in  the  reappearance  of  the 
superior  brand  of  soup  bones,  a  matter  in  which  of 
late  there  had  been  too  much  indifference. 

Nancy  luxuriated  in  her  renewed  proprietorship 
of  the  old  house,  her  home,  and  the  home  of  her 
family  even  before  the  British  officers  seized  it  for 
their  quarters  in  1812.  There  was  a  hole  to  this 
day  in  the  white  pine  panelling  above  the  fireplace  in 
the  dining  room,  which,  tradition  held,  had  been 
made  by  a  British  bullet  discharged  after  a  discus 
sion  of  the  family  port.  She  had  found  something 
depressing  in  the  rococo  civilization  of  Southern  Cal 
ifornia.  There  was  an  insufficient  appreciation  of 


/j/|  Tutor's  Lane 

Mr.  Square's  Eternal  Fitness  of  Things.  The 
spirit  of  Los  Angeles,  for  example,  was  the  same  as 
that  of  the  picnic  party  which,  lunching  on  Ruskin's 
glacier,  leaves  its  chicken  bones  and  eggshells  to 
offend  all  subsequent  picnickers.  At  Woodbridge 
people  did  not  make  public  messes  of  themselves. 
If  they  picnicked  on  a  glacier  they  did  up  their  egg 
shells  in  a  neat  package,  which,  in  default  of  a  handy 
bottomless  pit,  they  took  home  with  them  and  put  in 
their  garbage  pails.  That's  the  way  nice  people 
behaved,  and  what  on  earth  was  there  to  be  gained 
by  behaving  otherwise? 

So  Nancy  was  glad  to  be  home  and  see  again  the 
family  things  she  had  grown  up  with  and  loved. 
She  was  glad  to  see  Henry,  who  appeared  in  his 
turn  glad  to  see  her;  but  her  feelings  upon  being 
restored  to  her  nephew  were  much  deeper  than 
either.  Harry  mattered  more  to  her  than  any  one- 
else  in  the  world.  Her  mother,  who  had  died  five 
years  ago,  when  Nancy  was  twenty,  had  been  par 
ticularly  devoted  to  him;  and  this  would  have  been 
sufficient  reason  in  itself  for  commending  him  to  her 
tenderest  care. 

Such  was  the  family  that  would  have  met  the  cas 
ual  eye  of  a  stranger:  a  young  professor  in  ex 
tremely  comfortably  circumstances,  with  a  brilliant 
future  and  an  enviable  son,  living  in  a  fine  old  house 
administered  by  a  younger  sister,  the  favourite 
daughter  of  the  town.  Beneath  the  surface,  how 
ever,  and  unknown  except  to  a  few,  was  a  conflict  of 


Tutor's  Lane  45 

wills  that  only  an  exterior  made  up  of  strong  family 
pride  and  respect  for  the  established  order  could 
have  withstood. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  Mrs.  Robert 
Lee-Satterlee — the  grandeur  of  whose  name  was 
never  reduced  by  the  omission  of  a  single  syllable — 
asked  Nancy  to  go  to  California,  Nancy  had  talked 
it  over  with  Henry. 

"It  would  be  nice  to  go,  for  I  haven't  really  been 
away  since  Mother  died.  I  confess  I'd  like  it,  but 
she's  not  coming  back  until  March,  and  that  seems  a 
long  time  to  leave  Harry  and  the  house." 

Henry  had  leisurely  put  his  cigar  into  his  mouth, 
had  puffed  luxuriously,  and  had  then  continued  to 
gaze  at  his  paper  without  saying  anything. 

Nancy  hated  this  indifference,  and  she  knew  that 
Henry  knew  that  she  hated  it.  It  was  like  his 
whistling.  At  times,  when  for  some  reason  or  other 
he  wished  to  be  disagreeable,  he  would  start  quietly 
whistling  behind  his  paper,  apparently  for  his  sole 
enjoyment.  It  was  as  if,  in  view  of  the  coldness  of 
his  audience,  he  were  forced  to  express  himself  in  a 
humble  and  subdued  manner,  but  express  himself  he 
must.  The  tunes  that  he  chose  were  The  Rosary, 
The  Miserere,  Tosti's  Good-bye,  Gounod's  Ave 
Maria.  There  would  be  an  occasional  lapse  into 
the  jazz  song  of  the  moment,  and  quite  frequently 
a  sacred  number.  The  songs  themselves  exasper 
ated  her,  but  what  was  unbearable  were  the  trills 
and  improvised  fireworks.  She  would  leave  the 


46  Tutors'  Lane 

room  thoroughly  angry,  and  would  fancy  that  as 
she  ascended  the  stairs  the  tune  swelled  slightly  and 
acquired  even  more  airs  and  graces. 

So  now,  as  he  deliberately  smoked  his  cigar  with 
out  noticing  her,  her  anger  rose.  He  was  so  smug, 
so  self-sufficient — she  wanted  to  stick  a  pin  into 
him. 

"It  isn't,  of  course,  as  if  the  house  were  not  in 
capable  hands,"  she  went  on,  "for  Katie  and  Julia 
are  perfectly  responsible,  and  Annie  couldn't  be 
better."  Henry  put  down  his  paper,  blew  a  cloud 
of  smoke,  and,  looking  blandly  at  her,  twisted  his 
mouth  so  that  he  might  enjoy  the  luxury  of  biting 
his  cheek. 

"Well?"  burst  out  Nancy.  "I  don't  see  why  you 
need  be  so  irritating  about  it?" 

"Why,  don't  be  foolish,"  he  replied  with  an 
amused  smile;  "do  just  what  you  want,  of  course." 
To  Nancy,  the  smile  spoke  a  great  deal  more. 
"How  fatuous  you  are,"  it  said,  "with  your  devotion 
to  my  son  and  to  me.  Let  a  lollypop  in  the  way  of  a 
trip  to  California  come  along,  and  away  you  go  as  If 
you  didn't  have  a  responsibility  in  the  world. 
There's  a  firm  nature  for  you." 

She  had  fled  to  Mrs.  Norris,  as  always  in  an  emer 
gency,  and,  receiving  reassuring  words,  she  had 
gone,  but  not  without  tears  and  misgiving  and  not 
without  an  unforgettable  memory  of  Henry's  be 
haviour. 

She  had  frankly  discussed  her  Henry  Problem 
with  Mrs.  Robert  Lee-Satterlee.  "I  can't  seem  to 


Tutors'  Lane  47 

reach  any  middle  ground  with  him,"  she  had  said. 
"Either  I  feel  terribly  because  things  go  so  wrong, 
so  much  worse  than  when  Mother  was  alive,  or  else 
I  am  furious  with  him.  Then  I  am  overwhelmed 
with  mortification  and  make  up  my  mind  that  I  wf.ll 
get  on  with  him,  no  matter  what  happens.  And  of 
course  he  can  be  perfectly  lovely  when  he  wants  to 
be — and  then  he  will  deliberately  go  and  do  some 
horrid  thing  which  makes  me  want  to  go  away  and 
— drive  an  auto  stage,  or  something." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Nancy  would  on  these  occa 
sions,  retire  and  invest  herself  in  some  such  romantic, 
emancipated,  role.  Possibly  she  would  be  a  great 
surgeon.  Having  gone  through  her  preliminary 
training  with  unprecedented  speed,  she  had  estab 
lished  herself  as  a  famous  specialist — of  the  brain. 
People  who  had  gone  wrong  in  their  heads  would  be 
brought  to  her  by  their  desperate  friends  and  rel 
atives.  If  she  only  would  help  them  out.  She  did 
usually,  although  heaven  knew  that  she  was  but  one 
little  woman  to  so  many  brains,  and  as  she  worked 
chiefly  under  God's  guidance,  anyway,  she  had  to 
conserve  her  strength.  However,  she  operated 
steadily  from  eight  in  the  morning  until  eight  at 
night  with  only  a  light  lunch  in  between — possibly 
only  a  water  cracker.  She  saw  herself  in  the  opera 
ting  room  with  her  rubber  gloves  and  her  knives. 
There  was  a  hazy  cloud  of  white-robed  nurses  and 
distinguished  surgeons  who,  attracted  from  all  over 
the  world,  had  come  to  see  her  miracles  for  them 
selves.  A  form  was  on  the  table,  with  head  shaved. 


48  Tutors'  Lane 

She  was  to  go  into  his  cerebellum  and  take  out  a 
tumor  which  had  caused  deafness,  dumbness,  and 
blindness.  She  would  probably  have  to  make  two 
hundred  stitches  or  more  in  sewing  him  up,  but  she 
always  had  been  good  at  needlework,  and  it  gave 
her  no  concern.  She  picked  up  her  saw — but  to  her 
horror  she  found  she  couldn't  bear  to  stick  it  in! 

Or  she  was  a  famous  lawyer,  strongly  reminiscent 
of  Portia,  specializing  in  pleading  for  widows  and 
orphans.  She  had  a  secretary  to  handle  her  corre 
spondence,  who  explained  that  as  Miss  Whitman  was 
able  to  work  chiefly  by  the  grace  of  God — her  health 
was  none  too  robust,  and  it  was  necessary  for  her  to 
put  her  trust  in  Him — it  really  was  not  fair  of  them 
to  expect  her  to  handle  their  cases.  However,  the 
most  outrageous  ones  she  passed  on  to  Nancy  and  it 
was  by  them  that  Nancy  made  her  great  reputation. 
Of  course  she  took  no  fees,  but  as  body  and  soul  had 
to  be  kept  together  and  the  secretary's  salary  paid, 
she  wrote  syndicated  articles  for  the  papers,  on  re 
ligious  and  ethical  subjects.  Naturally  she  was  an 
object  of  interest  and  curiosity  and  people  thronged 
the  court  room  when  she  pleaded.  They  saw  a 
quiet  woman,  dressed  in  black,  but  when  she  began 
speaking  you  could  hear  a  pin  drop.  There  was  a 
thrilling  quality  in  her  voice,  much  remarked  by  the 
press,  and  big  lawyers  pitted  against  her  had  been 
known  to  break  down  and  weep,  to  the  confusion  of 
their  clients.  The  judge — it  was  always  the  same 
one — had  a  big  bushy  beard,  and,  though  of  fierce 
and  impartial  mien  at  the  beginning  of  the  proceed- 


Tutors'  Lane  49 

ings,  he  had  been  known  time  and  again,  as  her 
address  continued,  to  draw  forth  his  large  silk  hand 
kerchief  and  blubber  into  it.  The  gratitude  of  the 
widows — who  extended  in  a  long,  black  line,  lead 
ing  their  army  of  white-faced  little  boys,  looking 
strangely  like  Harry  when  he  had  the  croup — was 
the  one  thing  that  she  could  not  stand.  She  would 
not  see  them  when  it  was  all  over,  but  she  couldn't 
keep  them  from  sending  her  flowers,  and  accordingly 
her  apartment  was  always  a  bower. 

So  mighty  would  these  scenes  be,  so  moving,  and 
so  pathetic,  that  Nancy  would  emerge  entirely  at 
peace  with  Henry  and  the  world.  They  dwarfed 
the  cause  of  her  anger ;  they  left  her  calm  and  serene, 
a  cousin  to  the  Superwoman. 

The  first  evening  at  home  passed  off  very  pleas 
antly  indeed.  Henry  was  charmingly  interested  in 
the  details  of  her  trip,  and  the  usual  cribbage  session 
was  doubled.  Harry's  progress  at  school  and 
through  the  mumps — an  illness  which  had  torn  his 
aunt — were  duly  recounted  and  the  maids  given  a 
good  bill  of  health.  The  state  of  Henry's  classes 
was  described  at  some  length.  They  were  slightly 
better  than  usual,  it  appeared,  and  his  special  course 
in  Labour  Problems  was  going  perfectly.  It  was 
really  making  him  famous,  he  told  Nancy. 

That  night  in  her  room,  as  she  sat  at  her  desk 
writing  her  diary,  she  calmly  told  herself  that  the 
present  tranquillity  should  last.  She  solemnly  re 
solved  to  guard  against  every  possible  contingency 


50  Tutors'  Lane 

that  might  lead  to  a  "situation."  She  did  not  pur 
pose  to  surrender  her  individuality;  she  would  not 
become  a  dummy.  But  there  must  be  a  middle 
ground  where  she  could  blend  service  to  herself  with 
service  to  her  family.  Life  should  be  rich,  but  it 
ought  also  to  be  tactful.  Surely  this  was  not  an 
impossible  union.  Very  well,  then,  she  would  live 
richly  and  tactfully. 

Just  exactly  what  she  meant  by  living  richly  she 
didn't  quite  know.  It  would  doubtless  be  some 
what  clearer  in  the  morning  when  she  wasn't  so 
sleepy.  Americanization  work  in  Whitmanville. 
That  seemed  to  offer  rich  possibilities.  There  must 
be  room  for  endless  Uplift  in  Whitmanville.  And 
what  could  be  richer  than  Uplift?  She  would  start 
a  school,  she  thought,  as  she  turned  off  the  light  and 
climbed  into  her  four-poster.  She  would  teach  the 
women  how  to  take  care  of  their  babies  and  the  men 
how  to  take  care  of  their  women.  But  it  must  all  be 
done  tactfully.  She  must  be  eternally  vigilant  upon 
that  score.  Yet  not  so  tactful  as  to  become  less  rich. 
Nor  yet  so  rich  as  to  become  less  tactful.  .  .  . 
Tact  and  riches — riches  and  tacks — tracts — 
striches — . 


V 


THE  night  following  Nancy's  return  was  the 
night  of  the  Norris  party,  the  party  which 
is  to  Woodbridge  what  the  Mardi  Gras  is 
to  New  Orleans,  the  Carnival  to  Rome,  and  what 
the  Feast  of  the  Ygquato  Bloom  was  to  the  ancient 
Aztecs.  It  is  always  held  on  the  twenty-first  of 
March,  Sunday  of  course  excepted,  and  it  is  known 
as  the  Vernal.  Not  to  be  seen  at  it  is  too  bad.  Not 
to  be  invited — unlike  the  lupercals  before  mentioned 
it  requires  invitations — is  a  blight  mercifully  spared 
all  but  the  most  painfully  outre.  Of  these  the  Coo- 
gans,  who  live  in  Center  and  whose  connubial  infelic 
ities  are  proverbial,  are  an  example.  Tradespeople 
frequently  bear  witness  to  the  marks  of  a  man's 
fingers  on  Mrs.  Coogan's  fair — and  by  no  means  in 
significant — arm,  and  it  is  common  property  that  she 
drinks  paregoric.  It  is  quite  clear,  of  course,  that 
such  people  can  not  expect  to  be  invited. 

The  Vernal  has  always  been  "different."  In  the 
old  days  Mrs.  Norris  set  her  face  against  dancing, 
not  upon  any  moral  grounds,  certainly,  but  because 
of  its  alleged  dullness.  Why  couldn't  people  enjoy 
one  another  without  flying  into  a  perspiration?  she 
asked;  but,  unfortunately  for  her  plans  for  the  es 
tablishment  of  an  animated  conversazione,  the  sub- 

51 


52  Tutors'  Lane 

stitutes  she  had  advocated  were  felt  to  be  even 
duller.  So,  one  by  one,  all  her  nice  games  were 
abandoned  and  only  the  charade  is  left.  This  how 
ever  has  gained  in  popularity,  if  anything,  and 
certainly  it  has  gained  paraphernalia.  Mrs. 
Norris's  costume  box  has  overflowed  into  a  trunk, 
and  from  the  trunk  has  spread  into  a  closet,  and  the 
closet  is  now  nearly  filled.  From  this  treasure  the 
two  captains  select  their  colleagues'  wardrobes,  a 
duty  discharged  in  advance  of  the  performance  by 
way  of  ensuring  enough  professionalism  to  prevent 
the  party's  collapsing  at  the  start.  In  other  words, 
Mrs.  Norris,  although  luckless  in  the  matter  of  "ad 
verbs,"  memory  contests,  and  backgammon  tour 
neys,  has  established  charades. 

It  used  to  be  a  masquerade  party,  but  because 
of  certain  unhappy  circumstances  which  have  recently 
befallen,  it  was  decided  this  year  to  do  without  the 
masks  and  "Fancy  dress."  For  the  last  few  years 
people  have  been  complaining  a  little  of  the  neces 
sity  of  getting  something  new  each  year.  Mrs. 
Bates,  for  example,  has  exhausted  the  possibilities 
of  her  husband's  summer  bath  robe.  It  served 
excellently  at  first  as  a  Roman  toga,  and  the  next 
year  it  did  well  enough  for  Mephistopheles.  By 
cutting  away  the  parts  ravaged  by  moths  it  passed 
as  a  pirate,  but  she  despairs  of  any  further  altera 
tion.  Then,  too,  it  would  always  be  remembered 
that  a  stranger  at  the  last  Vernal  had  in  all  serious 
ness  reproved  old  Professor  Narbo,  the  Chemist,  for 
not  taking  off  his  funny  old  mask  when  he  already 


Tutors'  Lane  53 

had  done  so,  a  mishap  none  the  less  enjoyed  because 
the  bringing  of  a  similar  charge  to  one's  friends 
has  been  an  inevitable  jest  among  the  wags  for  gen 
erations.  Professor  Narbo  had  been  offended,  and 
great  is  the  oftendedness  of  a  Full  Professor,  par 
ticularly  when  he  is  a  Heidelberg  Ph.D.  and  parts 
his  hair  all  the  way  down  the  back.  The  stranger 
had  been  crushed;  and,  all  in  all,  it  was  as  mortify 
ing  an  affair  as  one  could  well  imagine,  and  one 
which  in  itself  would  have  been  enough  to  do  away 
with  the  masks — a  long-discussed  possibility — had 
not  worse  followed.  Edgar  Stebbins,  Assistant 
Professor  of  History,  was  unfortunately  a  little 
too  warmly  devoted  to  the  memory  of  the  grape,  or, 
more  specifically,  of  the  corn.  Being  mildly  mel 
lowed  by  something  more  than  the  memory  of  it, 
he  found  occasion  to  embrace  a  lady  who  was 
dressed  in  his  period,  the  Late  Roman,  and  to  whom 
he  was  naturally  drawn.  The  lady  promptly 
screamed  and  unmasked;  and  the  situation  was  not 
at  all  improved  by  its  being  discovered  that  she  was 
the  wife  of  Professor  Robbins  of  the  Latin  Depart 
ment,  with  which  gentleman  Mr.  Stebbins  was  not 
on  speaking  terms.  Mrs.  Robbins,  it  seemed,  had 
employed  the  squeaky  voice  so  familiar  at  masquer 
ade  parties  and  had  thus  rendered  her  disguise  com 
plete.  Upon  her  testimony  it  was  learned  that  Mr. 
Stebbins's  voice  had  been  so  roughened  by  drink 
that  his  own  mother  wouldn't  have  recognized  it. 
Mr.  Stebbins  had  withdrawn  from  the  party  and,  at 
the  end  of  the  academic  year,  from  the  college  as 


54  Tutors'  Lane 

well,  and  his  name  is  now  only  an  appalling  memory. 

In  the  morning  Nancy  hurried  up  to  the  Norrises' 
as  soon  as  she  could.  She  found  Mary  and  her 
mother  in  the  drawing-room.  Mary  was  playing 
the  piano  while  her  mother  sat  in  a  distant  chair, 
amiably  shredding  codfish,  a  pleasure  which  she 
would  on  no  account  yield  to  the  kitchen. 

As  soon  as  the  rush  of  sisterly  greeting  was 
passed,  all  four — for  the  cod  could  not  be  left  be 
hind — repaired  to  the  sofa  in  the  library;  and  after 
the  gaps  in  their  correspondence  had  been  filled, 
they  came  to  the  party.  Mary  was  to  be  one  of  the 
charade  captains  and  Tom  Reynolds  the  other. 
Nancy,  who  was  an  inevitable  member  of  the  cha 
rade,  was  to  be  on  Tom's  side. 

"Tell  me,"  she  asked,  "is  he  really  as  nice  as  you 
people  make  out?" 

"Oh  yes,"  replied  Mary,  "he's  one  of  us." 

"He  used  to  scare  me.  He  never  would  dance 
with  me  any  more  than  he  had  to,  and  I  always  was 
afraid  he  would  get  that  terribly  bored  look  I've 
seen  him  get.  I  think  probably  he's  conceited." 

"Oh  dear,  to  hear  you  girls  talk  you'd  think  that 
a  little  honest  boredom  was  the  most  dreadful  thing 
on  earth.  Why,  your  fathers  used  to  get  so  bored 
with  us  that " 

"Now,  Gumgum,  you  know  that  isn't  sensible," 
broke  in  Mary  severely — a  regrettable  habit  which 
seems  increasingly  prevalent  among  our  modern 
daughters — "unless  you  people  were  ninnies." 

"That  was  in  Garfield's  administration,"  replied 


Tutors'  Lane  55 

Mrs.  Norris  absently,  "or  possibly  a  little  before,  in 
Hayes's — Rutherford  B.  Hayes.  He  did  away  with 
the  carpetbaggers  and  all  those  dreadful  people  in 
the  South."  Then,  more  dreamily  still,  "His  middle 
name  was  Birchard." 

"I  know  why  you  think  he's  conceited,"  Mary 
went  on,  warming  up  to  the  never-ending  pleasure 
of  analysis,  "but  it's  because  he's  really  diffident. 
Lots  of  people  I  know  who  people  think  are  snobby 
are  only  just  diffident." 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean  by  saying  that 
Rutherford  Hayes  was  diffident?  He  wasn't  a  bit. 
He  was  a  very  great  philanthropist." 

"She's  too  awful  today,"  exclaimed  Mary,  "with 
that  smelly  old  fish  and  Rutherford  Garfield.  Gra 
cious,  I'd  like  to  bury  the  old  thing." 

"You  horrid,  ungrateful  child,  when  I'm  doing 
this  for  your  lunch.  We're  just  old  Its,  we  mothers. 
I'm  going  to  start  an  Emancipation  Club  for 
Mothers.  The  poor  old  things,  they  might  just 
as  well  crawl  away  into  the  bushes  like  rabbits." 

There  then  followed  a  tender  passage  between 
mother  and  daughter,  which  ended  in  Mary's  blow 
ing  down  her  mother's  neck.  A  convulsive  scream 
and  a  frantic  clawing  gesture  in  the  direction  of  her 
daughter  was  the  immediate  reaction,  much  to  the 
confusion  of  the  codfish,  which  was  only  just  saved 
by  Nancy  from  a  premature  end  upon  the  hearth. 

Following  the  rescue,  the  heroine,  who  had  some 
shopping  to  do,  began  making  motions  of  departure. 
"You  must  come  as  soon  so  you  can  after  dinner 


56  Tutors'  Lane 

to  have  Tom  explain  what  you  are  to  do.  Gum- 
igum  thinks  we  ought  to  have  a  rehearsal,  but  Tom 
has  a  five  o'clock,  and  I  don't  think  it's  necessary 
anyway.  He's  really  awfully  funny  and  clever, 
Nancy,  and  you  must  like  him." 

"I  hate  clever  people.  I  have  nothing  to  say  to 
them.  I'm  a  perfect  gawk  when  they're  around, 
and  I'm  afraid  I  won't  be  able  to  stand  him." 

As  she  walked  on  down  to  Center,  however,  it 
occurred  to  her  that  he  might  come  in  useful  with 
the  children  of  the  parents  in  her  Whitmanville 
school.  He  could  teach  them  basketball  and  of 
course  he  could  coach  their  baseball  team.  He 
would  also  be  useful  in  taking  them  off  on  hikes 
and —  But  she  hadn't  seen  him  in  ever  so  long, 
and  he  might  not  do  at  all.  In  fact,  it  was  highly 
probable  that  he  wouldn't  do,  for  boys  are  suspicious 
of  clever  people,  and  he  almost  certainly  wouldn't 
think  of  doing  it.  Or  possibly  he  might,  out  of 
politeness,  and  then  when  he  got  bored  with  it  he 
would  decide  to  be  funny  with  the  boys,  and  they 
would  get  to  hate  him  and  tell  their  parents,  who 
would  come  to  her  with  sullen  looks  and  threatening 
gestures  and 

When  Nancy  arrived  in  the  evening,  she  found 
Tom  distributing  costumes.  He  was  heavier,  she 
noticed,  and  his  forehead  was  higher.  Some  day 
she  might  get  a  chance  to  tell  him  how  she  saved 
Henry's  hair  simply  by  brushing  it  carefully.  It 
was  ridiculous  to  put  a  lot  of  smelly  greasy  stuff  on 


Tutors'  Lane  57 

She  had  shaken  hands  with  him  and  received  her 
costume  which  was  an  aigrette  and  a  peacock- 
feather  fan.  "The  word  is  'draper,'  '  explained 
Tom,  "and  you  are  to  be  the  Lady  Angela.  In  the 
first  syllable  you  have  lost  your  pet  Persian  and, 
after  explaining  your  loss  to  the  little  house-maid 
who  is  dusting  around,  you  call  in  Merriam  the  de 
tective.  I  am  Merriam  the  detective  and  I  arrive 
immediately  after  you  are  through  calling  me  up  on 
the  telephone.  The  little  maid  goes  over  to  the  win 
dow  and  says,  'Goody,  here  comes  Mr.  Merriam  the 
detective  in  a  dray,'  and  then  you  go  out  to  meet  me, 
and  that's  the  first  act.  Then  I  come  on  alone  in 
the  second  act  and  investigate  the  room  heavily, 
looking  for  a  clue,  you  see.  I  have  a  theory  that 
the  little  maid  is  the  thief,  and  when  you  come  in, 
as  you  do  when  I  have  said  'Ha,  it  is  a  match  box,' 

I  explain  to  you  that " 

"Oh,  dear,  I  haven't  any  idea  what  I'm  to  do." 
"Well,  you  just  go  in  and  wave  your  fan  discon 
solately,  and  I'll  do  the  rest.  It  will  be  dreadful, 
of  course,  but  then,  no  one  ever  expects  them  to  be 
otherwise.  Now  I  think  the  best  way  is  for  us 
to  run  over  it,  and  then  little  things  will  come  to 
you." 


VI 


DOWNSTAIRS  the  Dean  and  Mrs.  Norris 
had  begun  receiving  their  guests,  most  of 
the    receiving   being   done   by   the    Dean. 
His  wife,  whose  trail  was  like  that  of  a  runaway 
astral  body,  was  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  call 
ing,  ordering,  laughing. 

The  Misses  Forbes,  invariably  the  first  comers, 
had  taken  possession  of  front-row  seats.  This  year 
Miss  Edith  had  the  Burnham  lace — an  heirloom 
whose  glory  could  on  no  account  be  dimmed  by  a 
tri-partite  division — and  Miss  Annie  had  the  Burn- 
ham  pearls.  They  were  a  modest  string,  perhaps, 
but  they  lived  on  after  more  spectacular  ones  became 
gummy.  As  for  Miss  Jennie,  the  youngest,  aged 
sixty-five,  she  was  something  of  a  philosopher,  be 
ing  the  community's  sole  theosophist,  and  she  re 
garded  her  sisters'  pleasure  in  their  baubles  with 
amusement.  Nor  could  she  be  drawn  into  a  dis 
cussion  of  their  ultimate  disposition,  a  nice  problem, 
for  other  Burnhams  and  Forbeses  were  there  none. 
"Why  not  give  them  to  the  museum?"  she  had  once 
suggested,  to  the  sorrow  of  her  sisters,  who  hated  to 
see  her  cynical  side.  Worse  than  that,  she  was  a 
radical  and  had  boldly  come  out  for  the  open  shop, 

or  the  closed  shop,  whichever  was  the  radical  one, 

58 


Tutors'  Lane  59 

and  she  talked  very  wildly  indeed  of  Unions  and 
Compensation  Bills. 

Miss  Elfrida  Balch  had  arrived,  and  likewise  her 
brother,  the  artist.  Miss  Balch  was  a  lady  of  al 
most  crystalline  refinement.  She  was  tall  and  fair, 
with  a  delicacy  of  complexion  that  stood  in  no  need 
of  retailed  bloom.  She  might  have  passed  for  the 
daughter  of  a  kindly  old  Saxon  chieftain — it  was, 
indeed,  generally  known  that  she  sprang  from  the 
seed  of  Saxon  kings — who,  firm  in  the  belief  that  no 
young  man  was  her  equal  in  birth  or  behaviour,  had 
insisted  upon  her  declining  into  a  spinsterhood  which 
increased  in  refinement  as  it  did  in  service.  Sen 
timental  persons  held  that  she  came  by  that  manner 
from  association  with  Art  in  her  brother's  studio. 
Others,  of  a  more  sardonic  turn,  said  that  her  man 
ner  was  that  of  one  who  continually  smelled  a  bad 
smell,  and  that  if  she  got  it  by  looking  at  her 
brother's  pictures  they  didn't  wonder. 

Leofwin  Balch  was  not  a  personable  gentleman. 
The  early  Saxon  strain  in  him  had  taken  the  form  of 
obesity,  a  tendency  not  confined,  if  we  may  trust 
the  evidence  of  scholars,  to  descendants  of  Saxon 
kings.  To  those  who  had  little  sympathy  with 
genius  in  its  more  alarming  shapes,  his  fair  chin 
whisker  seemed  an  absurdity.  The  more  discrimi 
nating,  however,  welcomed  it.  Anything  might  be 
expected  of  a  man  with  a  chin  whisker  which  some 
one,  with  more  imagination  than  restraint,  had  de 
scribed  as  an  "attenuated  shredded  wheat  biscuit  seen 
through  a  glass  darkly."  Leofwin's  work  had  of 


60  Tutors'  Lane 

late  years  suffered  on  account  of  a  rheumatism  which 
defied  medicine.  He  had  sacrificed  his  tonsils  and 
nine  teeth  upon  the  altar  of  Art  with  little  or  no  re 
lief,  and  it  was  now  feared  by  those  closest  to  him, 
his  sister  and  himself,  that  he  would  never  again 
approach  the  promise  given  in  his  "Willows." 
"Willows"  had  received  an  honourable  mention  at 
the  Exhibition — just  which  Exhibition,  was  a  subject 
of  controversy  among  the  uninitiated — and  had  been 
purchased  by  a  rich  baronet  in  Suffolk.  The  Balches 
had  seen  it  in  his  gallery,  and  it  had  become  an  open 
secret  that  hanging  in  the  same  room  were  a  Con 
stable  and  a  John  Opie. 

Mrs.  Robert  Lee-Satterlee  had  arrived  and  was 
already  with  a  group  of  the  great  around  her  chair. 
She  was  wearing  the  famous  Lee-Satterlee  dog 
collar,  and  her  hair  had  been  carefully  dressed  for 
the  occasion.  Such  items  alone  would  have  borne 
witness  to  the  importance  of  the  Vernal,  had  she  not 
in  addition  chosen  to  carry  the  Court  fan.  This  fan, 
which  was  known  as  the  "Court  fan"  to  distinguish 
it  from  all  other  fans  in  the  world,  had  been  given 
her  by  the  Court  ladies  when  she  and  her  husband, 
the  late  Ambassador,  had  departed  upon  the  arrival 
of  the  new  Administration's  appointee.  Its  sticks 
were  mother-of-pearl,  encrusted  with  diamonds,  and 
on  its  silk  was  the  cruel  story  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe 
set  forth  in  brilliant  colours,  but  in  what  wondrous 
manner  no  one  quite  knew.  For  it  was  true  that  Mrs. 
Robert  Lee-Satterlee  had  walked  with  kings,  danced 
with  dukes,  and  played  croquet  with  counts,  and  it 


Tutors'  Lane  61 

was  therefore  inevitable  that  she  should  be  regarded 
as  the  Empress  of  Woodbridge.  She  would  have 
been  considered  so  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  she 
had  great  possessions — in  addition  to  the  Court  fan 
and  the  dog  collar — possessions  which  were  com 
monly  supposed  to  be  destined  for  the  college,  the 
Lee-Satterlees  having  no  issue.  Accordingly,  Mrs. 
Robert  Lee-Satterlee  was  allowed  liberties  unthink 
able  in  another;  but,  be  it  said  to  her  credit,  she 
never  abused  them.  Since  she,  or  at  least  her  prop 
erty,  was  to  take  such  an  active  part  in  Woodbridge 
affairs  when  she  passed  into  the  next  world,  it  was 
only  reasonable  that  she  should  take  an  active  part 
while  she  was  still  in  this;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
no  one  knew  more  about  college  affairs  than  she. 
Still,  no  one  ever  thought  of  calling  her  a  nuisance. 
When,  occasionally,  she  did  quietly  suggest  that  pos 
sibly  such-and-such  a  course  might  be  a  wise  one  or 
that  such-and-such  a  man  might  be  the  one  to  appoint 
to  such-and-such  a  vacancy,  it  would  be  discovered 
that,  with  singular  insight,  she  had  made  a  perfect 
suggestion.  Whereas,  therefore,  it  might  be  said 
that  she  was  a  despot,  it  was  universally  agreed  that 
she  was  a  benevolent  one  and  an  enlightened  one, 
and  many  even  went  so  far  as  to  fear  that  her  death 
might  actually  prove  a  loss. 

The  library  was  filling  fast.  Mrs.  Norris,  cast 
ing  a  rather  wild  eye  into  it  occasionally,  would  per 
haps  signal  out  an  individual  for  a  mission  that 
somehow  in  the  general  run  of  things  could  not  con 
ceivably  be  completed.  For  example,  her  eye,  on 


62  Tutors'  Lane 

one  of  these  expeditions,  happened  to  alight  on  a 
gentleman  of  the  Physics  Department,  a  gentleman 
with  a  gold  tooth  and  a  loud  laugh,  who  represented 
a  somewhat  larger  group  of  instructors  than  the  best 
Tutors'  Lane  families  cared  to  acknowledge.  The 
gentleman  responded  with  an  alacrity  that  did  him 
credit,  nor  did  he  quail  before  the  steady  gaze  of 
Mrs.  Norris,  which  seemed  to  wonder  if  she  hadn't 
been  a  little  unwise  in  placing  such  trust  in  so  uninter 
esting  a  vessel.  She  asked  him,  however,  to  see  if 
the  musicians  had  found  a  good  place  to  put  their 
hats  and  coats,  and  as  there  were  several  musicians, 
some  of  whom  had  not  arrived,  he  was  not  restored 
to  his  nervous  and  too  friendly  mate  until  the  cha 
rades  were  over. 

And  now  there  was  a  suggestive  flutter  in  the 
Dean's  study,  behind  whose  large  folding  doors  the 
charades  were  to  be  acted.  Gentlemen  who  were 
standing  urbanely  about  moved  into  corners,  with 
smiles  calculated  to  impress  all  with  their  self-posses 
sion  in  even  the  first  houses.  The  doors  rolled  open 
and  a  buzz  of  admiration  greeted  the  distraite  Lady 
Angela,  whose  return  from  California  had  been 
acknowledged  by  but  few  of  the  audience.  She  went 
through  her  scene  with  the  little  maid,  and  when  the 
doors  were  bumped  together,  Mr.  Grimes  of  the 
Romance  Languages,  a  noted  success  at  anagrams, 
acrostics,  and  charades,  announced,  "Dray."  After 
a  few  minutes  the  second  act  was  done,  in  which  it 
appeared  that  Mr.  Merriam  the  detective  had  fallen 
madly  in  love  with  Lady  Angela.  In  the  midst  of 


Tutors'  Lane  63 

the  scene  the  little  maid  was  heard  purring  loudly 
off-stage,  a  purring  which  was  explained  by  both 
lovers  as  the  purring  of  the  lost  Persian.  Mr. 
Grimes  guessed  "Purr"  loudly  at  the  close,  and  the 
final  syllable,  in  which  Mr.  Merriam  appeared  dis 
guised  as  a  draper,  was  thus  rendered  stale  and  per 
functory.  Mary's  charade  eluded  Mr.  Grimes's  wit 
no  more  successfully,  and  the  music  was  received 
with  even  more  enthusiasm  than  usual. 

The  Lady  Angela,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  had  been 
considerably  flustered  by  the  ardour  of  Merriam  the 
detective's  wooing.  The  rehearsal  had  not  prepared 
her  for  anything  so  realistic,  and  she  was  annoyecl. 
Art  was  art,  of  course,  but  she  was  no  Duse,  and  she 
didn't  care  to  be  the  object  of  such  public  passion. 
The  fact  that  she  was  obliged  to  reciprocate  his  sen 
timents  instead  of  slapping  his  face  was  also  trying. 
Well,  there  was  no  reason  to  conceal  her  displeasure 
now;  and  when  she  found  herself  again  in  his  arms — 
they  were  rather  strong  arms,  incidentally,  and  he 
did  dance  well — she  had  little  to  say  to  him. 

It  was  not,  fortunately,  necessary  for  her  to  do  a 
great  deal  of  dancing,  because  of  the  visiting  she 
naturally  owed  to  her  elderly  friends,  and  once  when 
Tom  cut  in  she  left  him,  excusing  herself  on  the 
ground  of  having  to  see  the  Dean  and  Mrs.  Robert 
Lee-Satterlee,  his  time-honoured  bridge  partner. 
The  Dean  took  his  bridge  seriously  and  with  ex 
treme  deliberation.  Henry  Whitman,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  was  one  of  his  opponents,  played  with  a 
rapidity  amounting  at  times  to  frenzy,  and  he  was 


64  Tutors'  Lane 

fidgeted  by  anyone  of  more  sober  pace.  His  part 
ner,  old  Mrs.  Conover,  in  a  cap  with  violet  insertion, 
had  some  little  difficulty  in  telling  kings  from  jacks 
and  hearts  from  spades  and  was  inclined,  further 
more,  to  be  forgetful  of  the  trump.  Accordingly, 
Nancy  remarked  beneath  her  brother's  rather  ter 
rible  calm  all  these  symptoms  of  a  whistling  bee 
when  they  were  again  at  home. 

The  Dean  was  halfway  through  a  hand  and  was 
trying  to  choose  a  card  from  the  dummy.  He  at 
length  carefully  lifted  the  king  of  spades  from  it  as 
if  it  weighed  a  ton,  and  then,  after  looking  at  it 
soberly,  put  it  back  and  scowled  at  his  own  hand. 
Henry,  who  had  his  card  ready  to  throw  down  upon 
the  table,  slid  it  back  into  his  hand  with  the  look 
of  resignation  that  has  tranquillized  our  memories 
of  the  Early  Christian  Martyrs.  The  Dean  rested 
his  eye  on  the  tempting  king  in  the  dummy  and 
pursed  his  lips.  He  would  do  it.  Then  he  leaned 
over  and  played  it  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  lays  all 
in  the  lap  of  the  gods.  Mrs.  Conover,  who  had 
been  shuffling  her  cards  around  in  ill-suppressed  ex 
citement,  popped  out  a  trump  with  a  cry  of  triumph 
just  as  Henry's  Ace  of  Spades  covered  the  king.  A 
dreadful  scene  followed.  The  Dean  was  all  gal 
lantry,  Mrs.  Conover  all  self-reproach,  Mrs.  Robert 
Lee-Satterlee  all  charm,  and  Henry  all  exasperation; 
and  when,  later  in  the  same  hand,  his  mind  torn  with 
the  memory  of  his  lost  ace,  he  made  a  revoke  and 
was  quietly  brought  to  account  by  the  Dean,  Nancy 
discreetly  withdrew. 


Tutors'  Lane  65 

Tom,  who  had  seen  her  at  the  table  with  three 
people  whom  she  met  constantly  and  upon  whom  she 
hardly  needed  to  make  a  call,  felt  decidedly  snubbed. 
Was  she,  after  all,  so  much  a  Whitman  that  she  felt 
no  need  to  obey  the  ordinary  rules  of  decency?  It 
seemed  too  bad,  for  his  impression  of  her  earlier  in 
the  evening  had  been  decidedly  different. 

Tom  had  sometimes  wondered  about  love  at  first 
sight.  What  was  it  anyway?  How  did  one  feel? 
Was  it  like  a  blow  between  the  eyes,  a  ball  Fn 
the  breast?  Did  one  stagger  and  have  to  lie 
down,  with  a  pulse  coursing  up  to  one  hundred  and 
five?  What  was  it?  When  Tom  first  looked  at 
Nancy  in  the  costume  closet  he  wondered  if  he  were 
to  be  brought  face  to  face  with  the  answer.  Cer 
tainly,  little  hints  by  the  Norrises  and  Old  Mrs.  Con- 
over  would  have  put  the  idea  into  his  head,  had  it 
not  in  the  natural  course  of  events  found  its  way 
there  unaided. 

And  now  Nancy  had  made  it  clear  that  she  did  not 
care  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him.  It  was,  he 
guessed,  because  of  the  too  tender  passage  in  the 
charade.  He  pictured  himself  arguing  with  her. 
"It  is  ridiculous  to  object  to  me  because  I  played  the 
part  well.  Would  you  have  had  me  a  stick  and 
make  the  thing  even  more  of  a  bore?"  "No," 
coldly,  "but  you  didn't  have  to  have  that  part  in  it." 
"Well,  it  made  it  more  interesting,  and,  besides,  if 
you  think  that  I  put  it  in  just  for  an  excuse  to  put  my 
arm  around  you,  you're  entirely  mistaken  and  not 
the  girl  I  thought  you."  This  last  thrust,  which,  in 


66  Tutors'  Lane 

less  skilful  hands  might  have  become  mere  petu 
lance,  was  delivered  with  a  rolling  deliberation  that 
would  have  wrung  a  Jezebel.  Tom  always  did  well 
in  these  conversations,  but  unfortunately,  the  pres 
ent  situation  was  not  solved  so  easily.  Nancy,  he 
had  found,  was  even  more  attractive  than  she  had 
been  when  he  was  in  college.  They  would,  of 
course,  see  something  of  each  other  from  time  to 
time,  and  it  would  be  tiresome  not  to  be  friendly. 
Besides,  he  guessed  that  she  would  be  helpful  in 
discussing  his  yarious  problems.  Mrs.  Norris  was 
splendid,  of  course,  and  he  loved  her  dearly,  but  he 
found  himeslf  occasionally  wishing  for  a  somewhat 
younger  listener  and  one  not  given  over  to  quite  so 
many  nonsequiturs.  Nancy  seemed  excellent  mate 
rial,  but  if  she  were  going  to  be  superior —  Possibly 
it  was  because  of  Ephesus  and  the  Reynolds  Dry 
Goods  Store.  He  turned  away  with  a  slightly 
bilious  feeling.  If  it  should  prove  that  she  was 
affected  by  that,  then  indeed  would  he  be  disap 
pointed  in  her. 

He  crossed  the  hall  into  the  drawing-room,  where 
a  dozen  or  so  couples  were  dancing  in  various  stages 
of  aesthetic  intoxication.  The  saxophone  and  the 
violin  were  engaging  in  a  pantomime  calculated  to 
add  gaiety  to  the  waning  enthusiasm  of  the  party, 
and  he  gazed  at  them  in  disgust.  A  young  lady  with 
hair  newly  hennaed  and  face  suggestive  of  an  over 
ripe  pear  ogled  him  over  her  partner's  elbow  as  they 
jazzed  by.  Let  her  dance  on  until  she  got  so  sick 
of  him  she  was  ready  to  scream,  was  Tom's  thought. 


Tutors'  Lane  67 

In  one  corner,  obviously  having  a  poor  time,  was 
Leofwin  Balch.  Tom  sat  down  beside  him. 

"It's  too  hot  in  here,  don't  you  think?"  he  asked. 

"Much,"  replied  Leofwin.  "I  think  these  par 
ties  get  worse  every  year."  These  were  soothing 
words.  "Particularly  those  damned  charades,"  he 
went  on.  "Now,  my  dear  fellow,  you  know  per 
fectly  well  that  yours  was  a  miserable  failure." 

Tom  found  this  a  little  trying.  It  was  true  that 
no  one  could  be  more  deprecating  of  his  effort  than 
he,  but,  privately,  he  had  a  somewhat  better  opinion 
of  it.  As  charades  went,  he  thought  it  decidedly 
above  the  average;  and  the  way  he  had  examined  the 
room,  after  the  manner  of  Mr.  William  Gillette, 
and  come  upon  the  match  box  was  proved  amusing 
by  the  laugh  it  had  brought. 

"Granted,"  he  replied,  with  a  shade  of  sarcasm, 
"it  was  a  miserable  failure." 

"Why,  the  way  you  made  love  to  Miss  Whitman 
was  disgusting." 

Tom  flushed.  Had  he  really  been  as  bad  as  that? 
Had  he  really  just  missed  being  put  out  of  the  house 
like  that  clown  Stebbins?  Were  they  all  now,  all 
these  people  sitting  around  so  innocently  in  groups, 
were  they  all  blasting  his  name  as  a  cheap  cad? 
"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  you  went  at  it  like  a  puling  babe.  Why 
didn't  you  put  some  fire  into'  it — kiss  her  feet  or  bite 
her  neck?  Then  you  would  have  made  us  sit  up 
and  take  notice.  You  college  people  are  a  lot  of 
old  women,  anyway." 


68  Tutors'  Lane 

Tom,  with  bounding  relief,  started  to  confess  the 
apparent  inability  of  most  college  people  to  bite  la 
dies  in  the  neck,  when  he  observed  a  startling  change 
in  his  companion.  From  the  passionate  leprecaune 
of  the  moment  before  he  had  become  even  as  a  little 
child.  His  hand,  which  was  resting  elegantly 
on  the  arm  chair,  stole  up  into  his  chin  whisker,  amid 
which  it  wistfully  strayed.  There  crept  into1  his 
Saxon  eyes  that  light  of  resigned  suffering  which 
inspires  such  exquisite  anguish  in  the  friends  of 
Black  Beauty  and  Beautiful  Joe.  In  short,  his 
entire  being  proclaimed  to  all  who  would  but  look, 
a  great  quiet  man  in  love.  Tom's  eyes  followed  his 
and  rested  upon — Nancy!  He  rose  in-  disgust  and, 
walking  away,  suddenly  came  face  to  face  with  her. 
Then,  without  thinking  of  his  resolve  to  let  her 
severely  alone,  he  reached  out  his  hand  and  cut  in. 

What  a  fool  he  was !  Obviously  she  didn't  want 
to  dance  with  him,  and  here  he  was  forcing  himself 
upon  her.  It  made  him  look  so  common,  so  push 
ing,  so  like  an  Ephesus  drygoods  clerk.  Some  one 
barged  into  him,  surged  into  him,  from  the  rear, 
causing  him  to  stumble.  ''Sorry,"  he  muttered'. 
They  started  on,  just  out  of  step.  He  tried  to  get 
into  step  by  speeding  up,  and  their  knees  bumped 
together.  Would  no  one  ever  cut  in?  Then  the 
music  stopped,  and  it  appeared  that  the  musicians 
were  going  to  rest  for  a  few  minutes. 

"Let's  sit  down,  shall  we?"  said  Nancy.  They 
settled  themselves  upon  two  gilt  chairs  with  spindly 


Tutors'  Lane  69 

legs.     "Do  you  like  your  work  here?"  she  asked 
pleasantly." 

What  a  very  dull  question!  An  expletive  ex 
ploded  inside  Tom's  head.  "Oh,  yes,"  he  said. 
Then  after  a  heavy  pause,  "How  are  you  getting 
on  with  the  stars?" 

"Oh,  I  learned  the  diagrams  in  that  nice  little 
book  you  sent  me,  but  I'm  afraid  I've  forgotten 
most  of  them  now.  I  feel  rather  superior  about 
Betelgeuse,  though." 

"So  do  I.  We  might  start  a  Betelguese  Club." 
"What  would  we  do  at  it?" 
"Oh,  read  papers.  With  Betelguese's  power 
behind  us  we  might  do  all  sorts  of  things — have 
picnics  and  read  tracts  to  the  poor.  When  you 
see  only  college  people,  after  a  while  you  crave 
being  illiterate,  and  I've  thought  recently  that  I'd 
like  to  enlist  in  the  Navy  or  move  to  Alaska,  or 
go  over  and  work  in  the  Mills.  I'd  buy  a  black 
shirt  to  work  in  and  use  a  bandana — when  I 
used  anything — and  take  the  nice  extra  room  my 
laundress  has  in  Whitmanville.  She  says  her 
clothesline  goes  out  fifty  feet,  and  they  have  a 
phonograph.  Don't  you  think  that  would  be 
more  attractive  than  trying  to  teach  a  lot  of 
Freshmen  Carlyle  and  Hawthorne?" 

"Lots,  and  there  would  be  ever  so  much  more 
money  in  it." 

"It   would   be    a    kind    of    social    service    work, 
wouldn't  it?     'Woodbridge  Professor  Slaves  in  Mill 


70  Tutors'  Lane 

to  Earn  Bread.'  That  would  go  big,  all  over  the 
country." 

"Do  you  know,  I've  thought  a  little  of  doing  some 
social  work,  seriously.  I  don't  know  anything 
about  it,  of  course,  but  it  has  occurred  to  me  that 
if  I  could  get  a  group  of  people  together  we  might 
have  one  of  the  Physiologist  instructors  give  us 
some  lectures.  You  see,  the  first  thing  in  social 
work  must  be  the  health  of  the  people,  and  I  shoulcl 
think  a  good  grounding  in  the  fundamentals  would 
be  essential.  As  soon  as  we  have  their  interest 
in  their  personal  welfare  we  can  get  them  to  play 
ing  basketball,  brushing  their  teeth,  putting  screens 
in  their  windows,  and — so  on.  Naturally  I  don't 
know  much  about  it,  but  it  would  seem  as  though 
there  were  a  great  opportunity  for  somebody." 

"Conditions  in  the  town,  on  the  west  side,  aren't 
too  good." 

"Of  course  they're  not.  I  have  let  my  mind  run 
on  at  a  great  rate  about  it,  but  I  don't  see  why, 
if  the  right  person  got  hold  of  it,  the  whole  town 
couldn't  be  improved,  made  into  a  model  mill  town, 
you  know — with  playgrounds,  and  creches,  and — " 
Again  other  model  features  failed  her. 

"Well,  why  aren't  you  the  proper  person?  I 
should  think  you  could  do  it  if  anyone  could.  Your 
uncle  would  have  to  listen  to  you,  and  he  probably 
would  be  all  for  it." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Rob  is  just  as  nice  as  he  can  be — 
but  I  couldn't  do  it  all  alone." 

"Well,  now  of  course  we  have  got  into  this  thing 


Tutors'  Lane  71 

pretty  quickly,  but  I  assure  you  I  should  like  nothing 
better  than  to  do  something  about  it  with  you. 
After  all,  what  is  education  in  the  finest  sense,  but 
the  uplifting  of  the  masses?  You  probably  will 
want  to  think  it  over  a  little  more  before  going 
ahead,  but,  really,  I  hope  you  will,  and  I  hope  you 
will  let  me  join  you." 

"There  is  no  time  like  the  present.  Why  dilly 
dally?  We  both  realize  that  this  is  a  crying  need. 
Then  why  not  do  something  about  it?  If  you  will 
find  out  who  is  the  best  man  for  us,  I'll  provide  the 
rest." 

At  this  point  the  musicians  swung  into  Home 
Sweet  Home,  and  Mrs.  Norris  hurried  up  to  the 
embryonic  workers.  "The  party  is  over  now,  my 
dears,  and  please  help  by  going  and  getting  your 
things.  It's  this  awful  standing  around  saying 
good-bye  that  is  so  trying,"  and  with  an  emphatic 
push  of  her  back  comb  she  began  hauling  tables  and 
chairs  back  into  their  normal  places. 

Tom  had  only  just  time  to  assure  Nancy  that 
he  would  do  his  part  when  Mrs.  Norris  called  to 
him  again  to  help  her  with  the  dining-room  rug;  and 
with  a  quick  handshake  and  a  pleasanter  nod  than 
he  would  have  thought  could  possibly  have  come 
to  him  half  an  hour  before,  Nancy  Whitman  was 
gone. 


VII 

IN  the  morning  Nancy's  thoughts  flew  to  the 
proposed  social  work.  What  on  earth  had 
she  got  herself  into !  Swept  away,  as  usual, 
she  had  confided  her  plans  for  a  life  of  service 
to  a  man  she  barely  knew,  one  hour  after  she  had 
decided  to  leave  him  alone!  Well,  there  was 
nothing  to  do  now  but  make  the  best  of  it.  Their 
talk  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  shown  that  she  had 
been  a  little  silly  about  the  charade.  He  had  un 
suspected  depth.  That  had  been  made  clear  by 
his  conversation  about  education,  and  it  was  unlikely 
that  anyone  who  felt  as  strongly  as  he  did  could 
be  wayward  in  a  charade.  So  it  might  turn  out 
all  right,  after  all,  and  she  had  better  set  about 
getting  the  workers. 

Mary,  to  her  surprise,  was  a  disappointment. 
It  seemed  that  with  her  music,  which  she  was  study 
ing  seriously  this  year,  with  weekly  trips  to  Boston 
for  a  lesson,  she  had  no  time.  Others  of  her  friends 
to  whom  she  had  naturally  turned  were  unavailable 
for  one  reason  or  another,  and  the  affair  began  to 
look  discouraging.  On  the  fourth  day,  however, 
while  calling  upon  the  Misses  Forbes,  she  got  an 
unsolicited  recruit.  Her  mind  being  full  of  the 
idea,  she  was  talking  about  it  before  she  knew  it; 

72 


Tutors'  Lane  73 

and  to  her  astonishment,  and  a  little  to  her  dismay, 
Miss  Jennie  offered  her  services.  "I  cannot,"  she 
said,  "talk  to  the  operatives  about  their  bodies, 
and,  accordingly,  it  won't  be  necessary  for  me  to 
attend  the  physiological  lectures,  but  I  think  I  can 
be  of  use  later  on.  When  we  went  to  Miss  North- 
cote's  School  we  learned  to  weave  mats  and  paint 
on  china,  and  I  can  give  instructions  in  them.  In 
their  turn  they  will  instruct  me,  for  I  shall  learn 
much  about  Housing  Conditions  and  have  an  oppor 
tunity  to  examine  at  first  hand  the  various  industrial 
problems  of  the  day.  Who  knows?  when  we  are 
through,  I  may  prepare  a  paper  for  the  Nation" 
Her  sisters  indicated  their  disapproval  by  rocking 
hopelessly. 

Tom,  too,  had  met  with  difficulties.  Upon  think 
ing  the  matter  over  he  had  little  doubt  as  to  its  out 
come.  Enough  of  his  Ephesus  life  remained  with 
him  to  tell  him  that  factory  hands  are  not  to  be 
reached  by  lectures  from  academic  ladies  and  gentle 
men.  He  blushed,  too,  for  certain  sentiments  he 
had  expressed  upon  the  essence  of  education,  but 
they  might  be  credited  to  the  delicate  frenzy  of  the 
dance  and  his  unexpected  reconciliation.  It  was,  of 
course,  all  Nancy.  He  could  not  imagine  himself 
proceeding  upon  such  an  affair  with  anyone  else. 
Still,  he  found  it  necessary  to  placate  his  conscience 
for  the  time  taken  from  the  study  of  Beowulf  which 
he  was  then  making  for  his  PH.D.  "All  work  and 
no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy"  seemed,  after  a  some 
what  desperate  search,  as  sound  a  principle  as  any; 


74  Tutors'  Lane 

and,  furthermore,  he  would  save  time  from  his 
exercise  by  running  around  the  cemetery — the  clas 
sic  running  course — instead  of  playing  squash  at 
the  Country  Club.  So  that  problem  was  set 
tled. 

The  young  physiologist,  however,  upon  whom  he 
had  been  counting  had  developed  appendicitis,  and 
he  didn't  feel  that  he  knew  any  of  the  other  men  in 
the  department  well  enough  to  take  their  time  for 
such  a  speculative  cause.  Then  he  met  old  Profes 
sor  Sprig,  a  Star  man  of  '65,  who  had  been  a  cele 
brated  physiologist  in  his  time  and  who  was  now 
an  almost  equally  celebrated  eccentric.  Having 
complained  of  the  present  status  of  the  department 
and  explained  his  problem,  Tom  was  invited  by  the 
old  gentleman  to  bring  Nancy  to  his  rooms.  "You 
know,  I  suppose,  where  I  live?"  he  asked  with  a 
crafty  smile. 

Tom  did  know  where  he  lived.  The  old  four- 
story  frame  building  in  Whitmanville,  the  Diamond 
Building,  the  highest  in  the  town,  had  been  made 
famous  by  his  residence.  The  top  floor  was  said  to 
be  his  apartment  and  it  was  commonly  supposed  that 
he  kept  chickens  in  it.  There  were  some  dreadful 
stories  about  midnight  dissections,  but  cooler  heads 
affirmed  that  if  there  were  any  chickens  there  at  all, 
they  were  there  as  the  companions  and  not  as  the 
helpless  victims  of  a  debauched  old  age.  And  now 
the  two  social  workers  were  invited  into  these  mys 
terious  precincts !  The  news  might  swell  the  ros- 


Tutors'  Lane  75 

ter  to  disconcerting  proportions.  They  should  have 
to  proceed  with  caution. 

"All  we  want,  sir,  is  a  most  elementary  discussion. 
Just  enough  so  we  can  give  the  men  and  women  in 
the  Mills  some  simple  facts  about  themselves. 
Then,  with  that  as  a  starter,  we  can  build  up  more 
intelligently." 

"I  shall  be  glad  to  give  you  whatever  you  want. 
Shall  we  say  Tuesday  next?  At  eight  o'clock? 
Don't  dress,  you  know.  Just  come  as  you  are. 
This  is  business,"  and  with  another  of  his  sly  smiles 
he  moved  on  down  the  street. 

When  Tom  called  for  Nancy  on  Tuesday  night 
he  found  her  equipped  with  pad  and  pencils. 

"Henry  doesn't  think  too  highly  of  this  perform 
ance,  I  may  say,"  she  said,  smiling  up  at  him,  "but 
we  simply  couldn't  have  let  people  know  where  we 
are  going.  They  would  have  swamped  the  whole 
thing.  I  must  say  I  am  a  little  afraid."  She 
slipped  her  arm  through  his,  and  they  hurried  on 
down  Division  Street,  which  connects  Tutors'  Lane 
with  Whitmanville.  "If  he  only  has  chickens,  I 
won't  mind,  but  if  he  has  bats  I  shall  hate  it.  I  con 
fess  I'm  a  perfect  fool  about  bats.  They're  loath 
some.  What  they  really  are,  are  hairy  rats  with 
wings  like  web  feet,  and  they  have  the  most  loath 
some  mouths." 

Tom  was  curiously  excited.  He  felt  buoyed  up. 
It  was  like  water-wings,  he  told  himself.  And  when 
he  tried  afterwards  to  think  of  the  things  he  ha3 


76  Tutors'  Lane 

said,  he  could  remember  nothing  except  that  he  had 
quoted  Alice's  perplexity  about  bats  eating  cats  when 
she  was  falling  down  the  well,  and  that  they  had 
both  laughed  immoderately. 

The  Diamond  Building,  on  their  arrival,  pre 
sented  a  somewhat  portentous  picture.  A  Five, 
Ten,  and  Fifteen  Cent  store  dimly  showed  forth 
strings  of  penny  postal  cards  and  piles  of  dusty 
candy  in  its  macabre  windows.  The  second  floor 
was  throbbing  with  the  rich  life  of  a  poolhall,  and 
as  they  passed  the  Christian  Science  rooms  on  the 
third  floor  they  carried  with  them  the  strains  of 
a  therapeutic  hymn.  And  then,  at  last,  they  were 
before  a  door  which  bore  over  its  bell  the  pencilled 
legend,  H.  Sprig. 

They  were  admitted  by  a  flunkey  named  Herbert. 
Herbert's  period  of  usefulness  in  the  laboratory 
had  terminated  with  that  of  the  Professor,  and  the 
latter  had  engaged  him  as  a  body  servant,  not  only 
because  of  his  proved  capacity  and  loyalty,  but  be 
cause  of  the  unusual  shape  of  his  head,  upon  which 
the  Professor  found  it  restful  to  gaze.  He  was 
black,  was  Herbert,  and  was  at  present  clothed  in 
gorgeous  blue  livery  with  gold  buttons.  He  bowed 
the  guests  inside  and  led  them  through  a  narrow 
hallway  to  a  comfortable  room  of  generous  size,  the 
Professor's  library.  At  one  end  was  a  long  table, 
and  behind  it  was  Mr.  Sprig,  clad  in  a  morning  coat. 
Behind  him  on  the  walls  were  half  a  dozen  diagrams 
of  Man  the  Master,  designed  to  gratify  students 
whose  thirst  was  for  the  anatomical.  Before  Mr. 


Tutors'  Lane  77 

Sprig  were  a  pitcher  of  iced  water,  a  tumbler,  and  a 
sheaf  of  notes. 

Mr.  Sprig  rose  as  Nancy  and  Tom  entered  and 
bowed  pleasantly,  at  the  same  time  waving  them  to 
two  chairs  placed  close  together  before  his  table. 
When  they  had  seated  themselves  he  bowed  again, 
and,  without  more  ado,  began  an  address.  He 
spoke  in  a  low,  deep,  if  somewhat  quavery  voice,  and 
with  an  elegant  ease  of  manner.  It  was  his  pur 
pose,  he  explained,  to  give  them  an  elementary 
course  in  the  primary  systems  of  the  body,  together 
with  two  supplementary  lectures  on  hygiene,  in  order 
that  they  might  go  out  and  instruct  the  poor  in  the 
proper  care  of  their  bodies.  Tonight  he  would 
have  only  time  for  the  respiratory  and  circulatory 
systems,  next  time  would  come  the  digestive  and  ex 
cretory  tracts,  and  he  hoped  to  finish  in  six  lectures. 
It  was,  of  course,  a  broad  subject  and  much  water 
had  passed  under  the  bridge  since  his  day,  but  with 
their  generous  help  he  hoped  that  the  thing  might 
be  done. 

He  talked  for  fifty  minutes,  that  being  a  college 
period,  and  at  its  close  he  bowed  again.  He  then 
came  from  behind  the  table  and  shook  them  warmly 
by  the  hand.  "You  will  forgive  a  foolish  old  man,  I 
know.  You  see  I  haven't  given  a  lecture  since  I  re 
signed  eight  years  ago,  and  I  thought  I'd  like  to  do 
it  up  brown.  And  now,  Herbert" — for  the  elabor 
ate  old  man  had  appeared  at  the  close  of  the  lecture 
— "please  bring  in  the  things." 

The  "things"  were  some  little  round  cup  cakes, 


78  Tutors'  Lane 

three  wine  glasses,  and  a  large  bottle  of  sauterne. 

"The  summer  we  graduated,"  Mr.  Sprig  went 
on,  "my  classmate  Curtis  and  I  went  abroad.  We 
took  a  walking  trip  south  of  Bordeaux,  and  on  that 
walk  we  discovered  this  wine.  I  have  kept  in  touch 
with  the  people  who  make  it  ever  since,  and  although 
I  shall  never  get  any  more,  I  shall  have  enough  to 
last  me.  You  must  try  a  glass,  Miss  Whitman. 
I  assure  you  it  will  improve  all  of  your  systems!" 

When  Nancy  first  looked  at  her  watch  it  was 
nearly  eleven. 

"You  mustn't  go,  of  course,  until  you  have  seen 
the  chickens,"  said  Mr.  Sprig. 

The  chickens !  Under  the  charm  of  the  softly 
lighted  room,  the  old  gentleman's  quiet  flow  of  half- 
whimsical,  half-serious  reminiscence,  they  had  been 
carried  back  to  the  rosy  days  that  were  before  their 
birth.  Now  they  dreaded  lest  their  host  should 
show  himself  a  little  mad,  after  all. 

He  lit  a  bedside  candle,  and  at  his  request  they 
followed  him  out  upon  a  sun  parlor.  And  there, 
indeed,  was  a  wire-enclosed  runaway  with  a  white 
washed  shelf  at  the  end  supporting  four  sleeping 
forms.  The  candle  moved  nearer,  and  there  they 
were — beyond  any  possible  doubt,  Plymouth  Rocks. 

To  see  them  at  night  was  a  nice  problem,  he  ex 
plained.  Being  a  little  light-minded  about  sunshine, 
it  seemed  that  they  were  unable  to  discriminate  be 
tween  heaven's  high  lamp  and  the  electric  one  on  the 
porch,  and  would  dutifully  arise  when  either  ap 
peared.  Once  down  from  their  perch,  they  would 


Tutors'  Lane  79 

refuse  to  return  until  the  sun  was  removed;  and 
when  it  chanced  to  be  the  one  on  the  porch  and  was 
switched  off,  they  were  unable  to  return  because 
their  endowment  of  optic  nerve  was  small  and  their 
homing  instinct,  so  strong  in  bees  and  eagles, 
smaller.  There  was  created,  accordingly,  an  im 
passe,  but  Mr.  Sprig,  who  knew  his  hens,  circum 
vented  it.  He  lit  a  bedside  candle  which  merely 
troubled  his  friends'  sleep. 

"The  one  on  the  extreme  left  is  Helen  of  Troy. 
She  is  a  stunning  creature,  as  you  can  see.  She 
produced  an  egg  for  me  only  this  morning.  Next  is 
Malvolio.  I  confess  I  am  partial  to  him.  Then 
comes  Little  Nell.  She  is  extremely  demure  and  in 
clined  to  be  sentimental.  And  last  is  Carol  Kenni- 
cott,  who  chatters  so  much  I  am  afraid  I  shall  shortly 
have  to  pop  her  into  a  pie."  He  gazed  at  her 
affectionately.  "Well,"  he  continued  as  he  led  the 
way  back  into  his  library,  "I  have  now  shown  you 
my  treasures.  They,  of  course,  seem  a  little  crazy 
to  you,  and  I  hope  your  lives  will  end  so  fully  that 
you  won't  have  to  fall  back  on  them.  But  in  case 
either  of  you  should  find  yourself  old  and  foolish 
and  alone,  I  can  recommend  them  as  pleasant  and 
amiable  companions.  You  will  find  them  curiously 
simple — they  are  not  offended  if  you  don't  call 
upon  them  or  write  them  letters, — and  then  from 
time  to  time  they  yield  up  to  you  the  shining  miracle 
of  an  egg,  for  which  they  ask  no  recompense;  and 
when  they  come  to  lay  down  their  lives  they  do 
it  with  a  gesture  and  make  the  day  a  feast." 


8o  Tutors'  Lane 

He  was  standing  before  the  dying  fire,  surrounded 
by  its  genial  light,  as  his  guests  withdrew.  Near 
him,  just  touched  by  the  firelight,  were  the  crumbs 
of  their  supper  and  the  stately  old  bottle  which  had 
given  its  bouquet  to  the  room.  Old  Herbert,  mov 
ing  out  of  the  shadow  noiselessly  and  pleasantly, 
bowed  them  out,  and  as  the  vision  faded  one  of  the 
guests,  at  least,  pictured  the  four  friends  on  the 
sun  porch  readjusting  themselves,  after  their  fitTul 
fever,  to  the  gentle  life  of  their  home. 


VIII 

THE  following  Thursday  night  Tom  called  at 
the  Whitmans'  to  rehearse  the  lecture. 
Nancy's  cousin  Bob  had  arranged  to  have 
two  rooms  reserved  for  them  during  the  Friday  noon 
hour  at  the  Mills,  and  they  had  agreed  that  the 
best  way  to  prepare  for  the  ordeal  was  to  study 
their  notes  and  get  their  material  in  final  shape  and 
then  have  a  dress  rehearsal  on  Thursday  night. 
"After  a  while,"  Nancy  had  said,  "when  we  work 
into  the  harness,  we  probably  won't  need  to  have 
one,  but  I  don't  think  we  can  be  too  careful  of  this 
first  lecture."  This  had  been  precisely  Tom's  opin 
ion  also. 

Tom  had  never  seen  Henry  so  amiable.  In  fact 
he  seemed  hard  put  to  it  to  keep  from  unre 
strained  merriment,  and  Tom,  who  found  the  affair 
more  alarming  as  it  progressed,  would  have  pre 
ferred  avoiding  him  altogether.  He  knew  that 
Henry  was  calling  him  callow,  a  lightweight,  charges 
well-nigh  proved  by  his  present  undertaking,  and  to 
save  himself  from  rout  he  had  to  remember  that 
Henry  was  a  heavy  Grave  man  and  that  his  own 
participation  was  only  a  question  of  common  cour 
tesy  to  a  lady,  anyway.  Nancy  had  set  her  heart 
upon  the  thing,  and  he  would  be  a  very  indifferent 

81 


82  Tutors'  Lane 

friend  to  stand  idly  by  and  not  lift  a  finger  to  help. 

"I  believe,"  said  Henry,  "that  we  are  to  sit  in 
the  drawing-room.  Nancy  will  stand  in  the  far 
end  of  the  library." 

"I  see,"  replied  Tom  vaguely. 

"She  feels  that  having  the  conditions  rather  try 
ing  tonight  will  help  her  tomorrow.  Accordingly, 
she's  going  to  speak  first,  and  she  wants  me  to  ex 
cuse  her  for  not  being  here  when  you  arrived.  By 
coming  in  formally  and  beginning  her  address  with 
out  speaking  to  us,  she  hopes  to  get  some  of  the 
feeling  of  the  way  it  will  be  tomorrow."  And  with 
a  somewhat  hysterical  noise  he  went  to  the  stair 
way.  "All  right,  Nancy." 

In  a  minute  Nancy  appeared  on  the  stairs  and, 
walking  stiffly  across  into  the  library,  she  climbed 
upon  a  footstool  at  the  far  end.  In  front  of  her 
was  an  old  violin  stand.  Upon  it  she  put  her  notes. 
She  then  raised  her  face;  and  even  at  the  distance  it 
appeared  flushed. 

"Fellow  workers,"  she  began. 

At  this  point  Henry  broke  into  uncontrollable 
laughter.  "Excuse  me,  really,  but  it  is  too  much. 
'Fellow  workers' — oh,  dear  me.  Oh,  oh,  I  am 
afraid  I  can't  stand  it.  You  must  excuse  me,  really. 
Oh,  dear  me,"  and  rising  weakly,  handkerchief  in 
hand,  he  tottered  from  the  room. 

Nancy,  the  picture  of  resigned  despair,  gazed  at 
Tom.  He  felt  slightly  hysterical  himself. 

"What  are  we  to  do?"  she  asked  helplesly.  As 
they  were  nearly  fifty  feet  apart,  the  pitch  of  her 


Tutors'  Lane  83 

voice  was  necessarily  above  that  used  in  ordinary 
conversation  and  gave  to  her  words  considerable 
melodramatic  force.  A  fresh  shout  of  laughter 
descending  from  the  stairs  made  the  situation  none 
the  easier. 

Nancy  was,  indeed,  thoroughly  upset.  What  was 
to  become  of  her  independent  life  if  this  failed? 
How  else  could  she  express  herself?  Was  it  to 
collapse  at  the  very  start,  before  she  could  even 
approach  her  dreams  for  the  future?  To  have  it 
end  ridiculously,  to  have  her  become  a  laughing 
stock,  would  be  too  cruel.  No,  she  would  fight  for 
her  liberty. 

"Why,  the  thing  to  do  is  to  go  on,"  replied  Tom. 
Had  those  words  been  said  at  Marengo  or  Poitiers 
or  Persepolis,  they  might  today  be  learned  by  school 
children.  They  were  of  the  stuff  that  wins  lost 
causes.  They  stem  defeat  as  effectively  as  fresh 
battalions. 

"Fellow  workers,"  Nancy  began  again,  and  this 
time  there  was  only  respectful  silence,  "I  have  come 
to  you  today  to  tell  you  a  little  something  about  the 
machines  which  are  forever  your  property,  which 
were  given  to  you  by  your  Maker  and  which  it  is 
your  sacred  duty  to  keep  in  as  good  condition  as 
possible.  I  mean  your  own  bodies."  She  paused, 
and  Tom  nodded  encouragement  from  the  other 
room.  "It  has  become  my  pleasant  duty  to  come 
to  you  and  tell  you  how  you  may  keep  these  God- 
given  machines.  You  are  to  regard  me,  in  other 
words,  as  your  friend  and  sister."  The  lecturer 


84  Tutors'  Lane 

was  here  threatened  by  a  dry,  pippy,  cough  and  the 
whole  course  was  imperilled.  However,  she  drove 
fiercely  on. 

"At  the  outset  you  should  have  a  brief  working 
knowledge  of  such  things  as  your  heart  and  lungs, 
your  pancreas,  liver,  big  and  little  intestines  and 
their  juices;  and  I  shall,  accordingly,  give  you  a 
brief  idea  of  the  various  systems,  beginning  today 
with  the  circulatory  and  respiratory.  Next  time 
I  shall  hope  to  cover  the  digestive  and  excretory 
tracts,  and  I  shall  close  with  two  talks  on  personal 
hygiene."  This  ended  the  preliminary  matter,  and 
the  lecturer  proceeded  with  the  body  of  her  talk  in 
a  somewhat  more  mechanical  style.  The  respira 
tory  system  was  dismissed  in  six  minutes,  although, 
in  some  curious  way,  Mr.  Sprig  had  strung  the  same 
material  out  to  half  an  hour. 

Before  beginning  upon  the  circulatory  system, 
however,  she  sprang  a  surprise.  "For  your  conven 
ience,"  she  explained,  "I  shall  draw  a  diagram  of 
the  heart  and  its  valves,  and  with  your  assistance  I 
shall  explain  its  action."  After  a  little  wrestling 
with  the  diagram,  which  would  curl,  she  managed 
to  pin  it  to  the  wall.  She  then  proceeded,  in  red 
crayon,  to  draw  a  fully  equipped  heart.  She  fin 
ished  with  audible  relief  and,  turning  triumphantly 
— greeted  Miss  Balch  and  her  brother  Leofwin. 

"Dear  me,  I  am  afraid  we  are  intruding,"  said 
Miss  Balch,  looking  around  with  ingenuous  charm. 

Henry,  having  heard  the  bell  which  the  social 
workers  had  been  too  absorbed  to  hear,  appeared  at 


Tutors'  Lane  85 

the  door  and  relieved  the  situation  temporarily. 
Leofwin,  however,  whose  eye  was  naturally  caught 
by  the  pictorial,  was  gazing  at  the  circulatory  sys 
tem  on  the  wall.  "What  on  earth  is  that?"  he 
asked,  with  more  curiosity  than  was  perhaps  excus 
able.  "It  looks  for  all  the  world  like  some  sort  of 
impressionistic  valentine." 

Nancy,  for  one  reckless  moment,  was  tempted  to 
say  that  it  was,  but  temperate  judgment  prevailed. 
After  all,  why  need  she  be  ashamed  of  what  they 
were  doing? 

"Tom  and  I  are  giving  a  course  of  lectures  at  the 
Mill,  in  hygiene,  and  we  are  just  rehearsing  a  little; 
that's  all.  The  valentine  shows  the  heart  action. 
Those  arm  things  are  the  valves,  you  see." 

"But,  really,  you  know,  even  a  valve  must  have 
some  perspective." 

"Well,  of  course,  I'm  no  artist.  The  cut  in  the 
dictionary  was  very  small,  and  when  I  enlarged  it  I 
tried  to  get  the  right  proportions,  but  I  just  had  my 
tape  measure  and " 

"I  shall  help  you.  Elfrida  will  bear  me  out:  I 
have  always  been  interested  in  the  lower  classes, 
and  I  shall  love  to  go  with  you  and  draw  it  when 
the  time  comes." 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  let  you  do  that." 

"Why  not?  I  admit  I've  had  no  experience,  but, 
after  all,  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  it  is  the  spirit  that 
counts,  isn't  it?" 

Elfrida  had  engaged  Tom  and  Henry  at  a  point 
as  far  distant  as  she  could  from  her  brother  and 


86  Tutors'  Lane 

Nancy,  and  she  now  asked  Tom  what  he  thought 
of  Somebody's  latest  novel  and  made  him  lose 
track  of  their  conversation. 

"Are  you  really  a  realist?"  asked  Miss  Balch. 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  am." 

"Fancy,"  replied  Miss  Balch.  "Then  I  think 
you  would  like  a  thing  I  got  out  of  the  library  the 
other  day  by  one  of  these  new  Russians.  He  has 
some  dreadful  name.  Well,  it  is  about  this  man,  a 
peasant,  who  falls  in  love  with  this  Bolshevist  agent, 
and  she  uses  the  man,  you  see,  as  a  tool.  Then 
there  is  this  other  woman  in  it  who " 

Leofwin  had  adopted  a  very  free-and-easy  man 
ner,  it  seemed  to  Tom.  He  was  sitting  with  his 
legs  crossed,  hands  folded,  one  arm  over  the  back 
of  his  chair,  half  facing  Nancy.  He  was  being  ex 
tremely  bland  and  at  his  ease.  It  was  the  sort  of 
thing  one  might  do  in  a  Russian  drawing-room,  per 
haps,  where  the  ladies  doubtless  didn't  mind  being 
bitten  in  a  fit  of  passion,  but  it  was  decidedly  not 
the  way  to  behave  in  Woodbridge — although  it  must 
be  confessed  that  an  impartial  observer  might  have 
failed  to  distinguish  any  marked  difference  in  the 
way  Tom  himself  was  sitting,  since  he,  too,  had 
crossed  his  legs,  folded  his  hands,  and  was  half  fac 
ing  Nancy.  It  was  clear  that  Nancy  was  painfully 
trying  to  do  the  honours.  "You  must  let  me  see 
your  pictures,"  Tom  heard  her  say. 

".  .  .Really,  Mr.  Reynolds,  I  think  you  might 
listen  to  me  when  I'm  trying  so  hard  to  entertain 
you." 


Tutors'  Lane  87 

"Why,  I  heard  everything  you  said.  All  about 
this  new  Russian." 

"Sly  boots!"  said  Miss  Balch  archly. 

Tom  wondered  what  the  proper  reply  was.  What 
he  wanted  to  say,  in  the  same  arch  manner  was  "Puss 
Wuss!"  but  instead  he  just  grinned  brightly  and  let 
it  be  inferred  that  he  was  thinking  of  all  sorts  of 
clever  things. 

"A  penny  for  your  thoughts,  sir,"  cried  Miss 
Balch. 

This  was  unbearable,  especially  since  Henry  was 
apparently  enjoying  it  so  much. 

"I  hope  you  won't  think  me  rude,  but  I  was  think 
ing  of  the  great  pile  of  uncorrected  test  papers  at 
home  on  my  desk,  and  I  am  afraid  you  will  have  to 
excuse  me."  He  rose.  The  whole  room  rose. 

He  started  for  the  door,  and  Nancy  hurried  over 
to  him.  "Isn't  it  dreadful?"  she  seemed  to  say. 
Behind  her,  like  Tartarin's  camel,  loomed  Leofwin. 

"We'll  meet  here  at  twelve,"  Nancy  said,  and 
with  an  effort  she  managed  to  include  the  cavalier 
and  irrepressible  artist,  who,  beaming  and  bowing, 
showed  in  every  corner  of  him  his  thorough  approval 
of  the  whole  arrangement. 


IX 


BY  a  coincidence,  the  two  men  arrived  at  ten 
minutes  to  twelve.  They  found  Nancy  in 
a  rather  pathetic  state  of  excitement.  She 
had  been  running  up  and  down  stairs  and  from  one 
room  to  another  and  she  met  them  with  the  elabor 
ate  calm  of  one  about  to  give  himself  up  to  a  capital 
operation. 

"We  have  a  nice  day  for  it,  anyway,"  she  said 
bravely.  Any  agreeable  condition,  however  remote 
it  might  at  first  appear  from  the  business  at  hand, 
was  welcome.  "Tell  me,"  she  asked  Tom,  "do  you 
think  I'm  dresesd  suitably?" 

"Perfectly." 

"Some  social  workers  go  down  in  the  slums  in  the 
worst  old  clothes  they  can  find,  but  I've  heard  that 
the  people  down  there  like  to  see  nice  things,  so  I 
compromised.  This  is  just  a  gingham  dress,  you 
see,  but  I'm  wearing  my  pearls." 

"I  should  think  that's  just  right.  Didn't  Henry, 
the  Labour  expert,  help  you?" 

"Oh,  I  didn't  bother  him.  He's  not  interested, 
you  see." 

Leofwin,  who  had  been  fidgeting  around  for  an 
opening,  now  burst  forth.  "I  came  early,"  he  said, 
"to  find  out  if  I  can't  do  the  lungs  too;  I've  been 

88 


Tutors'  Lane  89 

practising  them  along  with  the  heart,  you  know,  and 
I  think  it  might  go  well  dashing  them  in  somewhere. 
What?"  Leofwin's  "what's"  were  noteworthy. 
They  were  in  a  higher  key  than  the  rest  of  his 
conversation,  which  was  itself  high,  and  he  drew 
them  out  to  almost  exquisite  lengths.  They  were 
nearly  all  that  was  left  of  his  week-end  with 
the  patron  in  Suffolk. 

"Oh,  dear  me,  no,"  replied  Nancy  with  consider 
able  spirit. 

"I  think  you  will  like  my  heart,"  he  continued  un 
dismayed.  "I've  been  doing  them  all  morning.  I 
dug  up  some  priceless  old  Beaux  Arts  crayons.  It 
will  be  nice  when  we  get  to  the  brain.  It's  awfully 
romantic,  I  find,"  and  he  gave  Nancy  a  killing  smile. 
She  gazed  at  him  placidly  and  then  turned  to  Tom. 
"What  time  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"Nearly   twelve." 

At  this  point  Edmund  drove  up,  and  with  rer 
newed  palpitations  the  party  proceeded  to  the  Mill. 

As  they  passed  in  through  the  gates  Tom  noticed 
with  sickening  dread  a  huge  sign  in  flaming  letters, 
"ARE  YOU  PHYSICALLY  FIT?  Mr.  Rey 
nolds  of  Woodbridge  Will  Address  You " 

They  were  met  by  Bob  Whitman,  a  hearty  young 
man  who  had  just  been  made  an  officer  of  the  Com 
pany.  He  stared  at  Leofwin  in  amused  bewilder 
ment. 

"Mr.  Balch  is  helping  me  with  the  diagrams," 
explained  Nancy.  "And  now  where  do  we  go?" 

"Well,  you'd  better  just  sit  here  for  a  minute  or 


go  Tutors'  Lane 

two  until  they  get  settled  with  their  lunches.  I'll 
take  you  to  where  you  go;  and  what's  more,  Nancy, 
I'll  introduce  you!"  Nancy  received  the  word  "in 
troduce"  as  a  surgical  case  receives  the  initial  in 
jection  of  morphine.  The  first  step  had  been 
taken,  and  nothing  could  save  her.  "As  for  you, 
Tom,  your  lecture  room's  over  there,  and  IT11  get 
the  foreman  to  introduce  you." 

"Don't  think  of  it,"  said  Tom  quickly,  "I'll  just 
introduce  myself;  get  to  be  one  of  them,  you  know 
what  I  mean.  Just  one  of  the  boys." 

"Well,  Miss  Whitman,  let's  you  and  I  get  to  be 
just  one  of  the  girls,"  tittered  Leofwin. 

"I  think  we  might  as  well  go  in,"  said  Nancy 
without  noticing  Leofwin's  jest,  which  appeared 
singularly  hollow. 

"You're  sure  you  don't  want  some  one  to  start 
you  off,  Tom?"  asked  Bob. 

Tom  was  certain  of  it;  and  before  entering  his 
room,  he  waited  until  Nancy's  party  had  disappeared 
around  the  corner.  He  then  opened  the  door  and, 
going  over  to  a  man  who  was  ruminating  vacantly 
upon  a  huge  chunk  of  bread,  sat  down.  "There's 
going  to  be  some  sort  of  lecture  here,  today,  isn't 
there?"  he  asked. 

"I  dunno,"  replied  the  man. 

"Yeah,  there  is,"  spoke  up  a  hand  nearby.  "I 
seen  it  on  a  sign  this  morning.  Some  guy  from  the 
college." 

"That's  what  I  thought,"  said  Tom.  "I  thought 
I'd  just  come  in  and  see  what  he  had  to  say.  Can't 


Tutors'  Lane  91 

stay  very  long,  though,"  he  added,  looking  at  his 
watch.  Then  after  a  pause,  "Pretty  nice  place  you 
got  here." 

"Oh,  it's  good  enough,  I  guess." 

The  room  was  a  large  one,  filled  with  three  or 
four  dozen  tables  bearing  complicated-looking  ma 
chinery.  There  were  twenty  or  thirty  men  sitting 
around  solemnly  chewing  their  food. 

"Pretty  slow  now,  isn't  it?"  asked  Tom. 

"Yeah,  they  laid  off  about  a  hundred  last  week." 

"This  laying-off  stuff  would  have  gone  bigger  a 
couple  of  years  ago — in  the  army — wouldn't  it?" 

"I'll  say  it  would." 

"Have  a  cigarette?"  said  Tom.  "What  outfit 
were  you  in?" 

The  prospect  of  free  cigarettes  and  army  talk, 
which  already  in  less  than  three  years  had  taken  on 
a  romantic  glow,  attracted  the  other  men,  who,  as 
they  finished  their  lunches,  came  up  and  joined  the 
circle.  Tom  was  holding  forth  in  the  centre;  and 
when  Bob  Whitman  glanced  in  on  his  way  Rome  he 
could  see  that  Tom,  by  making  his  talk  informal, 
was  getting  it  across  in  great  style. 

Once,  during  the  conversation,  Providence  seemed 
to  offer  an  opportunity  of  bringing  in  his  lecture  in 
fsuch  a  way  that  no  one  would  guess  he  was  giving 
it. 

His  conscience  bothered  him  a  little,  and  he 
plunged  ahead.  One  of  the  men  told  how  his 
bunkie  at  Base  Six  in  Bordeaux  had  died  of  heart 
failure  when  under  ether.  In  a  somewhat  parched 


92  Tutors'  Lane 

voice  Tom  started  to  explain  how  this  could  come 
about,  but  in  no  time  he  was  talking  gibberish. 
"The  aorta,"  he  heard  himself  saying,  "is  the  big 
main  artery  which  comes  out  of  one  of  the  ventri 
cles,"  and  then  he  noticed  the  dazed  look  on  the 
men's  faces  and,  floundering  hopelessly,  managed 
to  laugh  it  off.  Well,  he  had  tried  to  talk  to  them, 
anyway,  and  by  consulting  his  watch  he  found  that 
half  an  hour  had  gone  by. 

After  his  third  cigarette — he  had  come  plentifully 
supplied — he  looked  at  his  watch  again.  He  could 
go  at  last!  It  was  ten  minutes  to  one,  and  Nancy 
had  probably  finished  long  ago.  "Apparently  this 
guy  isn't  coming  today.  I've  got  to  run  along. 
Well,  I've  enjoyed  this  talk  a  lot,"  and  with  an 
inclusive  smile  and  wave  of  the  hand  he  went. 

Nancy  wasn't  back  in  the  car,  and  starting  off  in 
the  direction  they  had  taken,  he  soon  came  to  her 
room.  There  must  have  been  a  hundred  women  in 
it  and  it  was  Leofwin,  not  Nancy,  who  was  talking 
to  them. 

Tom  opened  the  door  quietly  and  sat  down  on  a 
stool  in  the  rear.  Nancy,  pale  and  helpless,  was 
sitting  on  one  side  of  a  resplendent  circulatory  sys 
tem  drawn  to  illustrate  the  subtleties  of  the  de 
signer's  art. 

"You  will  observe,  ladies,"  Leofwin  was  saying  in 
his  purest  Suffolk  manner,  "that  shading  is  done 
with  the  crayon  well  back,  like  this."  He  made  a 
few  swift  lines  on  the  corner  of  the  System  and 
looked  up  with  his  bright,  inquisitive  smile.  "Now 


Tutors'  Lane  93 

are    there    any    questions?"     There    was    a    stony 
silence,  amid  which  the  one  o'clock  whistle  blew. 

The  foreman,  left  in  charge  by  Bob,  rose.  "I'm 
sorry,  Miss  Whitman,  but  I'm  afraid  we'll  have  to 
stop  today." 

The  worker's  friend  and  sister  bowed  to  him  and, 
clutching  her  notes  and  her  bag,  with  firmly  set  lips 
and  eyes  fixed,  marched  to  the  door.  Leofwin  fol 
lowed,  bowing  pleasantly  right  and  left,  to  the  in 
tense  gratification  of  his  audience,  and  the  trio  re 
tired. 

"Jolly,  wasn't  it?"  said  Leofwin.  "I'm  sorry, 
though,  we  couldn't  have  had  more  time.  I  didn't 
get  to  foreshortening  at  all.  However,  I  think  I 
probably  helped  them  a  good  deal.  Sometime  I'd 
like  to  tell  them  about  etching,  you  know,  and 
aqua — and  mezzotints." 

Nancy  received  her  assistant's  remarks  in  com 
plete  silence.  She  was  even  unable  to  do  more  than 
nod  a  good-bye  to  him.  But  she  shook  Tom's  hand 
in  parting,  and,  with  an  air  that  might  augur  the 
worst,  she  asked  him  to  come  and  see  her  on  the  next 
afternoon. 

Nancy  was  particularly  charming,  Tom  thought 
when  he  was  again  with  her,  and  what  was  even 
more  to  the  point,  he  found  that  they  were  to  be 
alone.  She  got  his  tea  ready  without  difficulty — he 
was  flattered  that  she  remembered  his  formula — and 
they  settled  back  for  a  good  talk  and  laugh. 

"I  wasn't  civil  to  him,  but  I  really  don't  care ! 
Did  you  ever  know  a  more  dreadful  person?" 


94  Tutors'  Lane 

"Never.  He's  awful.  But,  tell  me,  how  did  it 
go  until  he  took  charge?" 

"Why,  not  so  badly.  But,  oh,  Tom  I  heard 
about  you!" 

Tom  flushed.     "What  did  you  hear?" 

"Well,  Bob  was  here  last  night  and  he  said  he  saw 
you  through  the  window.  He  told  us  how  you 
got  them  all  around  you  and  how  you  might  have 
been  talking  about  anything."  She  was  wholly 
admiring. 

"Oh,  I  just  talked  to  them,"  he  said.  "I  never 
could  have  gotten  away  with  anything  formal." 

"Isn't  it  funny?  I  used  to  think  that  teaching 
must  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  I  used  to 
imagine  myself  lecturing  to  the  whole  college,  but 
I  can  appreciate  now  what  you  and  Henry  are 
doing." 

Tom  was  anxious  to  have  the  conversation  move 
upon  firmer  ground.  He  was  also  in  the  dark  as  to 
what  the  next  move  in  the  campaign  was  to  be. 

Was  it  to  be  abandoned,  or  were  they  to  try  and 
carry  on?  The  latter  possibility  seemed  too 
fearful.  How  could  he  go  into  that  room  again? 
But  one  must  proceed  cautiously.  It  would  never 
do,  for  example,  to  come  out  and  treat  the  whole 
thing  as  a  distinctly  juvenile  performance,  something 
they  had  quite  outgrown,  until  it  was  clear  that  they 
had  outgrown  it.  Again,  now  was  not  the  time  to 
explain  the  real  nature  of  his  lecture.  He  could  do 
that  when  the  whole  thing  had  become  an  amusing 


Tutors'  Lane  95 

memory.  "What  are  we  going  to  do  about  Mr. 
Sprig?"  asked  Tom  vaguely. 

"You  mean  are  we  going  to  keep  on  with  the  lec 
tures?" 

"Well,  yes." 

"What  do  you  think?  Last  night  I  was  so  sick 
about  the  whole  thing  that  I  was  ready  to  give  it  all 
up,  but  now  I  wonder  if  it  isn't  our  duty  to  give  it 
one  more  trial."  Her  words  were  disappointing, 
but  the  dispirited  tone  in  which  she  said  them  was 
cheering,  and  Tom  made  so  bold  as  to  sing  the  lately 
revived  "Duty,  duty  must  be  done,  the  rule  applies 
to  everyone,  and  painful  though  the  duty  be,  to 
shirk  the  task  were  fiddle-dee-dee  .  .  ."  ;  a  happy  im 
pulse,  for  when  Henry  arrived  from  his  five  o'clock 
he  found  Tom  at  the  piano  and  Nancy  sitting  by 
him,  the  one  in  the  role  of  the  Mikado  of  Japan  and 
the  other  as  his  daughter-in-law-elect. 

When,  however,  on  the  following  Tuesday  they 
again  climbed  down  from  the  fourth  floor  of  the 
Whitman  building,  the  light  had  indeed  gone  out  of 
the  undertaking.  Mr.  Sprig's  subject,  the  digestive 
and  excretory  tracts,  had  not  been  a  propitious  one 
for  so  critical  a  time.  Leofwin,  who  had  invited 
himself  along,  had  been  captivated  by  the  decorative 
possibilities  of  the  alimentary  canal  and  had  led 
the  discussion  following  the  lecture  with  a  vigour 
and  thoroughness  trying  for  those  unfamiliar  with 
an  artist's  training.  "Don't  you  think  it  might  be 
fun  to  trace  something  all  the  way  from  the  initial 


96  Tutors'  Lane 

bite  down?"  he  asked.  "Let's  take  an  olive,  a 
green  olive.  'Back  to  Nature  by  A.  Green  Olive: 
A  Drama  in  Six  Acts  and  any  Number  of  Scenes.'  ' 

Tom  was  looking  intently  at  the  diagrams  on  the 
walls.  At  musical  comedies  and  the  movies,  when 
embarrassing  situations  arose,  one  was,  in  a  meas 
ure,  prepared.  The  darkness,  too,  helped,  and  one 
could  stare  straight  ahead  until  the  relief,  which 
was  rarely  long  in  coming,  arrived.  There  was, 
finally,  the  comfort  of  numbers.  But  now  they  were 
only  two — the  artist  and  the  scientist  being  immune 
to  shame.  It  was,  furthermore,  extremely  bright, 
everybody  was  out  in  the  open,  and  although  the 
amateurs  had  come  prepared  for  a  momentary  brush 
with  a  bowel  or  two,  they  had  no  reason  to  expect 
a  prolonged  causerie  upon  even  more  intimate  mat 
ters.  Tom  was,  accordingly,  hot  with  embarrass 
ment,  and  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  Nancy  was 
also. 

As  Leofwin  rattled  on,  with  frankness  ever  more 
Elizabethan,  Tom  glanced  at  Nancy.  She  was  ex 
amining  the  point  of  her  pencil  with  as  elaborate  an 
interest  as  he  had  ever  seen  shown  in  any  object. 
It  seemed  an  altogether  remarkable  affair;  but  then, 
apparently,  so  was  the  eraser.  They  were  com 
plementary.  A  line  could  be  made  by  the  point, 
a  delicate,  straight  line;  and  then,  reversing  the  pen 
cil,  the  line  could  be  taken  out  by  the  eraser.  The 
thing  was  complete. 

Tom  became  angry.  What  right  had  that  great 
calf  to  subject  Nancy  to  such  an  ordeal?  He  turned 


Tutors'  Lane  97 

to  her  and  said  without  lowering  his  voice,  "This  is 
rather  dull,  don't  you  think?  Let's  go  out  and  see 
the  hens." 

They  went  out,  but  couldn't  very  well  see  the  hens, 
since  they  had  no  candle  and  were  above  deceiving 
them  with  the  porch  light.  Accordingly,  they 
stepped  back  into  the  little  hallway  that  led  to  the 
library.  To  go  on  into  the  library  was  to  expose 
themselves  again  to  the  mortification  of  the  physio 
logical  vagaries  of  Leofwin.  So  they  just  stood  in 
the  little  hallway.  And  then,  they  laughed. 

The  relief  of  a  thunderstorm  on  a  stifling  day  is 
proverbial,  as  is  the  relief  of  finding  one's  handker 
chief  just  before  one  sneezes;  but  what  are  these 
compared  with  the  flooding  joy  that  comes  with  re 
lease  from  an  embarrassing  situation  with  a  young 
lady?  The  effect  upon  Tom  was  to  make  him  ex 
cited;  more  so,  perhaps,  than  he  had  ever  been.  It 
was  the  same  swelling,  throbbing  excitement  he  had 
felt  when,  waiting  in  his  room  on  the  afternoon  of  his 
Election  Day,  he  realized  by  the  shouting  of  the 
crowd  below  that  his  election  was  coming. 

Nancy  was  really  wonderful.  From  being  curi 
ous  about  her,  he  had  been  swept  into  the  Problem 
of  Living  with  which  he  had  found  her  somewhat 
pathetically  struggling.  It  had  absorbed  him  in  the 
brief  time  that  he  had  encountered  it;  and  now  that 
her  first  attempt  at  a  solution  had  ended  in  ridiculous 
failure,  she  immediately  rose  above  it  in  laughter! 

And  how  happy  was  the  cause  of  their  laughter, 
after  all.  An  experience  such  as  the  one  they  had 


98  Tutors'  Lane 

just  come  through  must  make  or  break  a  friendship. 
Their  relationship  could  not  remain  the  same;  and 
with  their  laughter  they  had  sealed  the  new  bond. 

They  said  little  as  they  strolled  home,  alone,  in 
the  clear  night.  It  had  in  it  the  first  suggestion  of 
spring;  and  neither,  apparently,  found  need  to  hurry. 

"Bob  will  have  to  straighten  it  out  at  the  Mill," 
said  Nancy,  "and  I  shall  write  Mr.  Sprig.  I  think 
we  ought  to  send  him  something,  don't  you)?" 

They  had  come  to  the  Whitman  gate.  It  was  a 
high  wooden  structure,  connected  at  the  top,  and  in 
the  spring  it  was  covered  with  roses.  The  fanlight 
in  the  old  doorway  shone  down  the  brick  walk  and 
touched  Nancy's  hair. 

"Of  course  we  must." 

They  shook  hands  and  bade  each  other  good  night. 
And  then,  as  Nancy  turned  from  him  and  went  up 
the  lighted  walk  and  into  the  house,  Tom  knew 
without  any  particular  surprise  and  quite  without 
a  rising  temperature,  that  he  loved  her. 


X 


NANCY  emerged  from  her  social  service  work 
with  the  feeling  that  she  had  added  several 
chapters  to  the  store  of  her  experience. 
The  sheep-like  expression  that  covered  the  compos 
ite  face  of  her  group  had  brought  home  to  her  the 
ineffectiveness  of  her  plan.  One  couldn't,  it  was 
clear,  go  down  among  the  masses,  no  matter  how 
thoughtfully  dressed,  with  only  an  equipment  of  good 
will,  and  hope  to  do  them  much  good.  Nor  was 
she,  she  now  suspected,  the  person  to  attempt  such 
a  career.  She  fancied  she  saw  inherent  weaknesses 
in  her  character  which  would  preclude  a  successful 
performance.  She  had  been  frightened,  rather 
than  inspired,  by  the  women  in  that  room,  partic 
ularly  by  the  women  of  her  own  age.  "What  right 
have  you  to  come  down  here  with  your  pearls  and 
your  simple  gingham  dress,"  she  felt  they  were 
asking,  "  and  get  off  a  lot  of  this  college  stuff  to  us?" 
What  right  indeed?  She  was  convinced,  in  short, 
that  she  had  been  embarked  upon  a  hopeless  piece  of 
snobbery,  and,  finding  the  whole  business  distasteful, 
it  had  not  been  difficult  to  discover  her  unfitness. 

The  time  had  not  been  wasted,  however.     Not 
only  had  she  satisfied  herself  that  a  career  of  Uplift 

was  not  for  her,  but  she  had  made  a  friend  into  the 

99 


10O  Tutors'  Lane 

bargain.  Tom,  she  decided,  had  behaved  beauti 
fully  through  it;  and  in  her  humbled  state  of  mind 
the  offence  she  had  taken  at  his  acting  in  the  charade 
became  all  the  more  odious.  What  a  mean-minded 
girl  she  could  be,  to  be  sure;  yet  how  perfectly  he 
had  risen  above  the  situation.  He  had  received 
her  rudeness  with  an  instinctive  fineness  that  gave 
freshness  to  the  Biblical  admonition  about  the  other 
cheek.  He  had  returned  good  for  evil,  and  in  sup 
porting  her  through  the  ordeal  of  the  Uplift  Plan 
he  had  proved  himself  a  tower  of  strength. 

Tom  and  she,  a  few  days  after  the  final  lecture, 
had  gone  together  to  the  college  book  shop  and 
picked  out  their  present  for  Professor  Sprig.  They 
had  dawdled  over  the  shelves,  pulling  down  a  book 
here  and  another  there,  meeting  every  few  minutes 
to  show  each  other  a  possibility,  and  then  putting  it 
back.  The  thing  could,  of  course,  have  been  done 
much  more  quickly,  but  neither  seemed  in  a  hurry 
to  find  the  right  one,  for  they  both  liked  books,  and 
the  shop  was  well-stocked,  and  the  clerks  did  not 
descend  like  buzzards  upon  them.  They  at  length 
selected  a  rag-paper,  wide-margined  copy  of  Calver- 
ley's  Verses  and  Fly  Leaves  and  laughed  at  its  in- 
appropriateness  for  the  physiologist.  Still,  they 
were  confident  enough  that  Mr.  Sprig  knew  his 
Calverley  quite  as  well  as  they,  and  that  another 
copy  would  not  be  a  burden.  It  had  been  a  delight 
ful  two  hours,  and  Nancy,  at  dinner,  began  a  detailed 
account  of  it. 

But  Henry  was  not  interested.     "It  seems  to  me 


Tutors'  Lane  101 

that  you  are  seeing  a  good  deal  of  Tom  Reynolds, 
lately,"  was  all  that  he  said. 

And  why  shouldn't  she  see  a  good  deal  of  Tom 
Reynolds?  she  asked  herself.  There  was  that  in 
Henry's  tone  which  opened  up  the  old-time  anger. 
Here  he  was,  questioning  her  again,  this  time  ques 
tioning  her  friends.  He  was  questioning  Tom  ! 

Had  Henry  wished  to  further  the  young  man's 
chances  with  his  sister  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  he 
could  not  have  chosen  a  more  effective  method.. 
Tom,  who  had  been  doing  very  well  on  his  own  ac 
count,  was  now  made  doubly  romantic  through  perse 
cution.  Nor  do  I  think  Nancy  should  be  condemned 
as  over-sentimental  for  feeling  so,  for  if  the  reader 
— who  cannot  conceivably  be  thought  over-senti 
mental — examine  his  own  experience,  I  dare  say  he 
will  find  a  parallel.  In  any  event,  Nancy  was  in  a 
fair  way  to  discover  a  tender  interest  in  Tom,  if, 
indeed,  she  had  not  already  done  so. 

But  in  the  meantime,  she  must  be  true  to  herself 
and  live  richly.  She  had  not  yet  determined  what 
her  new  work  would  be,  nor  should  she  determine 
what  it  would  be  until  she  had  considered  the  matter 
more  dispassionately  than  she  had  the  last  one. 
Until  the  right  thing  was  apparent,  therefore,  she 
would  devote  herself  with  more  assiduity  to  the 
physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  progress  of  her 
nephew.  After  all,  what  finer  work  could  there  be 
than  the  rearing  of  a  first-class  American  youth? 

Henry  had  sent  his  son  to  Miss  West's  kinder 
garten  when  he  was  scarcely  four.  Harry  had  not 


1O2  Tutors'  Lane 

done  well  at  the  various  cutting  and  pasting  exer 
cises,  but  he  had  been  somewhat  precocious  at  read 
ing  and  was  already  advanced  into  the  third  reader. 
His  orthographic  sense,  however,  had  not  yet  un- 
budded,  and  it  was  to  the  gentle  fostering  of  this, 
in  particular,  that  Nancy  now  committed  herself. 
She  also  thought  it  high  time  that  his  musical  edu 
cation  should  commence,  and  the  services  of  Miss 
Marbury  were  invoked.  Harry,  unlike  the  general 
run  of  his  fellows,  was  wholly  charmed  with  the 
prospect  of  playing,  and  the  old  piano  was  assailed 
with  a  diligence  reminiscent  of  the  youthful  Handel. 
So  it  happened  that  Harry  was  practising  in  mid- 
afternoon  on  the  day  when  Leofwin  Balch  called, 
something  over  a  week  after  the  debacle  of  Nancy's 
social  service  career. 

Nancy,  too,  was  at  home  and  was  much  surprised 
and  annoyed  when  her  late  assistant  appeared.  Not 
the  least  surprising  feature  of  his  call  was  his  cos 
tume.  Usually  clad  with  a  conspicuous  and  artistic 
carelessness,  he  was  today  arrayed  like  the  lilies 
of  the  field.  He  was  wearing  a  morning  coat,  fault 
lessly  pressed,  and  in  its  buttonhole  bloomed  a  gar 
denia.  He  carried  a  stick  with  a  gold  band  around 
it,  his  spats  were  of  a  light  and  wonderful  tan,  and 
in  his  hand,  in  place  of  the  usual  greenish-brown 
veteran,  he  held  a  grey  fedora  of  precisely  the  shape 
and  shade  worn  by  His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  on  the  occasion  of  that  happiest  of  events, 
his  recent  visit  to  our  country. 

"I  learned  from  your  chauffeur  that  you  were  at 


Tutors'  Lane  103 

home,"  said  Leofwin,  smiling  graciously,  "but  I  had 
no  way  of  knowing  that  you  were  alone." 

He  had  actually  been  spying  on  her!  "Why 
didn't  you  call  up  one  of  the  maids?"  replied  Nancy 
with  more  asperity  than  was  perhaps  becoming  in 
a  hostess. 

"Delightful  picture,"  laughed  Leofwin,  "but  as 
a  matter  of  fact  you  see  I  don't  know  any  of  them, 
what?"  and  he  nodded  pleasantly. 

Harry,  who  had  progressed  to  the  D  scale  at  his 
second  and  latest  lesson,  was  going  over  it  with  all 
the  ardour  of  first  love,  and  contributed  a  tinkly- 
winkly  background  which  was  vaguely  disturbing.  It 
was  not  near  enough,  however,  to  be  quite  recog 
nizable,  and  Leofwin  carried  on  without  comment, 
supposing  it  to  be  a  kind  of  funny  clock,  or  some 
thing. 

"I  called,"  he  continued,  "at  this  odd  hour  in  the 
hope  that  I  might  find  out  how  you  are  after  our 
recent  attempt  to  improve  the  lower  classes."  He 
drew  his  chair  up  nearer  to  Nancy  as  he  spoke,  and 
there  was  a  tenderness  in  his  tone  that  alarmed  her, 
particularly  in  the  way  he  emphasized  "our." 

"I  am  quite  well,  thank  you." 

"Oh,  but  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  he  safd. 

The  fervour  of  his  words  was  nonsensical,  but  his 
intention,  alas,  was  becoming  clear. 

"If  you  will  forgive  me,"  he  continued,  "I  shall 
begin  at  once  upon  the  business  at  hand.  We  art 
ists,  you  know,  are  sometimes  accused  of  being  un 
businesslike.  Goodness  only  knows,  I  am  a  mere 


104  Tutors'  Lane 

child  at  stocks  and  bonds  and  par  and  all  those 
things,  but  the  underlying  essence  of  business  I 
rather  fancy  I  have — that  is,  quickness  of  percep 
tion.  Now  I  quickly  perceive  that  we  are  likely  to 
be  interrupted  here  at  almost  any  minute."  He 
paused  and  looked  about  a  little  wildly.  "I  do  wish 
we  might  have  a  more  secluded  nook  for  our  talk." 
Nancy,  however,  who  was  now  prepared  for  the 
worst,  did  not  offer  more  seclusion  and  her  lover 
continued.  "I  wish  we  had  some  grotto  where  I 
£ould  lead  you.  I  would  have  it  on  the  Libyan 
shore.  Overhead  would  be  the  azure  sky.  Before 
us,  stealing  up  the  golden  beach,  would  be  the  Med 
iterranean.  What  a  colourful  scene  !  Soft  breezes 
would  lull  you  to  my  mood,  and  on  their  spicy-laden 
breath  would  come  the  notes  of  faery  music." 

While  preparing  for  this  call  Leofwin  had  la 
boured  over  that  conceit  with  all  the  diligence  at 
his  command;  perhaps  too  diligently,  for  even  he, 
had  he  not  been  blinded  by  zeal,  might  have  seen 
that  it  was  something  too  ornate  to  appeal  to  a 
rather  practical  young  lady  of  twenty-five.  It  was 
much  too  ornate,  that  is  certain;  and  it  alone  would 
have  made  him  absurd  had  not  fate  joined  forces 
against  him  and  at  precisely  this  point  prompted 
Harry,  who  was  for  once  impatient  with  his  prog 
ress,  to  try  to  reproduce  the  larger  music  coursing 
through  his  soul.  This  he  did  by  striking  out  wildly 
upon  the  keys  in  all  directions;  and  at  the  same  time 
the  faithful  Clarence,  sUimberingly  waiting  for  his 


Tutors'  Lane  105 

master's  return  to  earthly  matters,  burst  into  full 
cry. 

"Good  gracious,  what  is  that?"  cried  Leofwin. 

Nancy  sped  to  the  door  of  the  music  room,  while 
strange  and  crashing  harmonies  rang  through  the 
house.  "Stop,  Harry.  Stop  that  dreadful  noise. 
You  mustn't  do  that.  Some  one  is  calling  on  me. 
I  think  you  had  better  go  out  and  play,  anyway." 

"Oh,  please,  Auntie,  please  let  me  play  the  scales 
some  more.  Just  for  fifteen  minutes." 

It  would  have  taken  a  heart  of  flint  to  with 
stand  such  pleading.  Nancy  left  the  musician  and 
went  boldly  back  to  her  visitor. 

Leofwin  was  plainly  annoyed  by  the  interruption. 
He  should  now  have  to  start  all  over  again,  and 
starting  was  difficult.  As  Nancy  reappeared,  how 
ever,  the  clouds  rolled  from  his  brow. 

"Is  everything  quite  all  right?"  he  asked  solici 
tously. 

"Quite  all  right,  thank  you." 

"Well,  in  speaking  just  now  of  the  Libyan  grotto, 
I  think  I  probably  suggested  the  theme  of  my  visit 
to  you  this  afternoon.  I  confess,  I  am  a  passion 
ate  man.  Things  of  the  senses  appeal  to  me  more 
than  to  most;  it  is,  of  course,  the  artist  within  me. 
I  am  like  a  mountain  torrent  or  the  beetling  crest  of 
an  ocean  comber  rushing,  full-bodied,  down  upon — 
upon — the  floor."  He  came  to  a  full  stop  and 
stared  with  pursed  lips  at  the  object  of  his  love, 
sitting  unhappily  before  him.  What  the  devil  do 


io6  Tutors'  Lane 

mountain  torrents  and  ocean  combers  rush  down 
upon?  Nothing  as  domestic,  surely,  as  a  floor. 
The  thing  was  unhappily  met. 

"Please,  Mr.  Balch,"  said  Nancy,  ris'ing,  "please 
don't  go  any  further.  I  really  can't  listen  to  you." 

"Nancy,"  he  cried,  attempting  to  seize  her  hand. 
"I  must  call  you  'Nancy.'  I  must  call  you  more 
than  that.  With  you  by  my  side  there  will  be  noth 
ing  I  cannot  do.  I  shall  make  your  name  ring  down 
the  ages — like  Madame  Recamier,  or — or,  Mona 
Lisa.  I  already  have  planned  a  piece  for  us.  You 
are  to  be  Miranda,  and  I  shall  be  Ferdinand.  You 
are  just  emerging  from  your  bath,  and  I  am  peer 
ing  through  the  bushes  at  you " 

The  picture  was  such  a  dreadful  one  that  Nancy 
could  endure  the  situation  no  longer.  From  being 
anxious  to  let  him  down  as  easily  as  possible — for  he 
was,  after  all,  paying  her  a  compliment — she  wished 
the  scene  over  at  any  cost.  He  was  making 
the  most  holy  of  moments  a  travesty.  She  felt 
amazingly  self-possessed. 

"I  appreciate  the  honour  of  your  intention,  Mr. 
'Balch" — the  language  was  that  of  Jane  Austen, 
whom  she  had  just  been  reading — "but  I  cannot 
allow  it  to  go  on.  In  fact,"  she  hastened  to  add, 
for  he  showed  signs  of  going  on,  "I  shall  have  to 
ask  you  to  go." 

The  D  scale,  laboriously  achieved,  floated  in  from 
the  music  room.  Leofwin  turned  away  and  Nancy, 
standing  aside  for  him,  was  dismayed  to  note  that 


Tutors'  Lane  107 

his  little  eyes  were  filled  with  sorrow  and  disappoint 
ment. 

"It  is  true,"  he  said,  "that  I  have  for  some  time 
wanted  you  for  myself,  but  of  late  another  reason 
has  been  urging  me  on.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  it,  I 
don't  think  I  could  have  come  to  you.  You  see,  it 
is  my  sister.  She  has  set  her  heart  upon  a  trip 
abroad;  not  an  ordinary  touristy  trip,  you  know,  but 
a  real  one — to  Italy.  We  have  now  only  enough 
money  for  one  to  go — I  gladly  resigned  it  to  her — 
but  she  does  not  feel  that  she  can  leave  me  alone. 
If  only  you  could  have — but  there,  my  dear,  I'll  not 
go  on." 

Nancy  was  a  little  disconcerted  by  this  sudden 
turn.  The  situation  had  become  almost  impersonal. 
"I'm  sorry,"  she  said.  She  wished  that  she  could 
have  thought  of  a  better  remark — a  better  one  came 
in  the  night,  when  she  was  going  over  the  whole 
affair — but  he  seemed  grateful  even  for  that. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said.  "But  Elfrida  will  be  so 
disappointed.  You  simply  can't  imagine  how  this 
will  spoil  all  her  plans.  But  perhaps  you  will  let 
me  try  again  some  time?" 

Harry  was  following  his  right  hand  with  his  left, 
an  octave  lower,  with  almost  no  success. 

"No,  I  am  afraid  not,"  said  Nancy  as  they  stood 
in  the  doorway.  She  softened  her  words,  however, 
by  holding  out  her  hand. 

"Good-bye,"  he  replied,  gently  taking  it;  and  then, 
following  the  Continental  custom,  he  stooped  and 


io8  Tutors'  Lane 

kissed  it,  much  to  the  amusement  of  two  undergradu 
ates  who  were  at  the  time  passing  down  Tutors' 
Lane. 


XI 


ON  the  morning  following  the  final  lecture 
Tom  woke  early,  and  his  mind  flew  to  the 
miracle  of  the  preceding  night.  He  was 
now  ablaze  with  Nancy!  It  was  a  dazzling  busi 
ness,  but  when  had  it  happenedj?  It  had  not  been 
as  though  he  had  gazed  too  boldly  into  the  sun  and 
had  fallen  down,  blinded  by  the  light  of  it.  It  had, 
to  date,  been  altogether  painless.  He  had  seen 
Nancy  in  various  situations,  some  of  them  pleasant, 
some  of  them  trying.  He  had  liked  the  way  she 
had  met  them;  and  then  it  dawned  upon  him  that  her 
behaviour  was  consistently  good;  and  next  he  knew 
that  it  would  always  be  so.  This  was  a  stupendous 
discovery,  the  more  so  since  he  was  not  aware  of  any 
such  consistency  in  his  own  character.  Had  he  not 
learned  in  elementary  physics  that  unlike  poles 
attract  one  another?  He  could  even  now  picture 
a  diagram  in  the  book  showing  the  hearty  plus  pole 
in  happy  affinity  with  the  retiring  minus  pole,  a  figure 
which  proved  the  thing  beyond  a  doubt.  Science, 
when  made  to  serve  as  handmaiden  to  the  arts,  has 
its  uses,  after  all,  and  Tom  took  comfort  in  its  pres 
ent  service. 

Still,  Nancy  wasn't  "cut  and  dried";  it  would  be 
a  grave  injustice  to  imagine  her  so.     She  was  con- 

109 


no  Tutors'  Lane 

sistent  in  an  ever  new  and  charming  way;  she  never 
obtruded  her  consistency.  One  would  almost  cer 
tainly  never  be  bored  with  her;  and  yet  one  could 
depend  upon  her  through  thick  and  thin.  He 
thought  of  the  way  the  crew  on  a  ferry  boat  throw 
their  ropes  over  the  great  piles  as  they  make  fast 
in  the  slip.  Nancy  was  such  a  pile — but  what  an 
odious  figure!  He  thought  of  her  face  as  he  had 
first  seen  it  on  the  night  of  the  Vernal,  when,  slightly 
flushed  and  smilingly  expectant,  she  had  peered  into 
the  costume  closet.  A  couplet  floated  out  of  Fresh 
man  English  into  his  mind — something  about  a  coun 
tenance  which  had  in  it  sweet  records  and  promises 
as  sweet.  He  jumped  out  of  bed  to  verify  it,  and 
found : 

"A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 
Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet." 

He  read  on: 

"A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food, 
For  transient  sorrows,  simple  wiles, 
Praise,  blame,  love,  kisses,  tears,  and 
smiles." 

There  was  one  more  verse,  and  the  last  two  couplets 
covered  everything. 

"A  perfect  Woman,  nobly  planned 
To  warm,  to  comfort,  and  command ; 
And  yet  a  Spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel-light." 


Tutors'  Lane  in 

He  turned  the  book  down,  open  at  this  point,  and 
resolved  to  memorize  those  lines. 

His  youth  and  playtime  had  now  left  him  for 
good.  The  time  for  half-hearted  or  three-quarters- 
hearted  attempts  to  forge  ahead  were  over.  He 
had  pledged  his  heart  and  shortly  hoped  to  pledge 
his  hand  in  the  service  of  the  loveliest  young  lady  in 
the  world,  none  less.  At  present  he  was  only  a  young 
instructor;  of  promise,  perhaps,  but  still  unproved. 
The  immediate  goal  in  his  academic  career  was  an 
Assistant  Professorship;  and  although,  even  under 
the  most  favourable  circumstances,  it  would  prob 
ably  be  a  matter  of  at  least  three  years  before  he  got 
it,  nevertheless  he  could  at  least  make  it  plain  that 
he  was  indubitably  on  the  way  to  it,  and  that  (giddy 
thought)  he  was  even  of  the  stuff  that  Full  Profes 
sors  are  made  on!  And  no  time  should  be  lost  be 
fore  this  were  shown.  Dressing  feverishly,  he  cor 
rected  some  slightly  overdue  test  papers;  and  when 
he  appeared  at  breakfast  his  landlady's  three  other 
guests  noted  the  spirit  in  his  bearing  and  commented 
upon  it  when  he  left. 

There  was  to  be  a  meeting  of  the  Freshman  Eng 
lish  Department  in  the  afternoon,  and  Tom  found 
himself  looking  eagerly  forward  to  it.  He  had  no 
idea  of  the  business  that  was  coming  up,  but  he  was 
going  to  be  extremely  keen-eyed  and  watchful  about 
it,  whatever  it  was.  The  little  slump  which  he  had 
allowed  to  creep  into  his  work  recently  was  over. 
He  wondered  if  any  of  his  colleagues  had  no 
ticed  it,  and  in  particular  he  wondered  if  Professor 


112  Tutors'  Lane 

Dawson,  Head  of  the  Department,  had  noticed  it. 

Professor  Dawson  was  Tom's  beau  ideal  of  all 
that  a  university  instructor  should  be.  Tom  had 
had  him  when  in  college,  had  taken  everything  that 
he  taught;  and  he  looked  back  upon  the  hours  spent 
at  his  feet  as  among  the  best  of  his  whole  life.  To 
teach  like  that  was  to  be  doing  something  indeed; 
and  it  was  the  picture  of  himself  giving  formal  lec 
tures  in  the  Dawsonian  manner  that  had  finally  led 
him  into  teaching.  That  Tom  should  have  imitated 
as  best  he  could  the  Dawsonian  manner  and  method 
was,  therefore,  inevitable,  but  it  none  the  less  ex 
posed  him  to  the  smiles  of  the  Department.  A 
member  of  it,  a  Professor  Furbush,  found  occasion 
to  refer  to  the  Johnsonian  anecdote  anent  sprats 
talking  like  whales;  and,  Tom  hearing  of  it,  there 
was  brought  into  being  one  of  the  enmities  which 
add  zest  to  collegiate  existence.  Professor  Daw- 
son  was  a  young  man  to  be  so  celebrated,  being  only 
some  fifteen  years  older  than  Tom  himself.  He 
was,  of  course,  a  Full  Professor — the  only  Full  Pro 
fessor  in  Freshman  English. 

Next  in  rank  to  him  in  the  Department  was  Mr. 
Brainerd,  a  gentleman  who  was  nearly  as  much  Pro 
fessor  Dawson's  senior  as  Dawson  was  Tom's.  Mr. 
Brainerd  was,  however,  only  an  Assistant  Professor, 
and  it  was  now  understood  by  all  that  he  would 
never  be  anything  higher.  Fifteen  years  ago  when 
he  produced  his  chef-d'oeuvre  on  Smollett  his  hopes 
had  run  high.  At  that  time  his  fate  hung  in  the  bal- 


Tutors'  Lane  113 

ance.  He  could  no  longer  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
"younger  men,"  and  his  status  was  to  be  determined 
once  and  for  all.  The  crowning  glory  of  a  Full 
Professorship  could  only  go  to  one  who  had  made 
some  significant  contribution  to  his  subject.  Would 
Tobias  Smollett  be  that?  Into  it  had  gone  all  that 
Brainerd  could  give,  and  it  had,  after  a  brief  and 
generally  indifferent  appearance  in  the  reviews, 
dropped  out  of  sight.  Then  it  was  recognized  that 
good  old  Burt  Brainerd  would  have  to  putter 
through  life  as  best  he  could.  Mr.  Brainerd  felt 
no  particular  bitterness  about  it,  certainly  no  bitter 
ness  towards  the  College.  He  had  been  disap 
pointed  in  his  publisher.  He  should  have  gone  to 
Beeson,  Pancoast  with  it;  instead  of  to  Trull.  Trull 
hadn't  pushed  it  at  all :  they  merely  announced  it  with 
a  string  of  books  on  very  dull  subjects.  Then,  too, 
they  had  used  a  cursed  small  type.  He  had  pro 
tested  against  this  and  had  been  told  that  a  larger 
type  would  have  made  it  much  more  expensive,  would 
probably  have  necessitated  doing  the  work  in  two 
volumes.  They  had  had  the  calm  assurance  to  talk 
to  him  of  expense  when  he  had  consented  to  waive 
his  royalties  on  the  first  five  hundred  copies! — an  ex 
emption,  by  the  way,  which  they  had  not  yet  suc 
ceeded  in  working  off.  Well,  that  had  been  his  main 
chance,  and  he  now  watched  the  rise  of  younger 
men  with  equanimity.  And  it  must  be  confessed 
that  he  got  a  certain  amount  of  cold  comfort  from 
the  remembrance  that  on  three  several  occasions 


114  Tutors'  Lane 

good  things  had  come  to  him  from  out  of  the  west, 
and  that  he  need  not  have  remained  "assistant"  had 
he  not  elected  to  do  so. 

Were  it  not  for  his  wife,  he  might  have  become 
content.  The  library  was  a  strong  one,  particularly 
in  his  field,  and  what  more  delightful  end  for  a 
scholar  than  to  browse  at  will  in  his  period  and  write 
essays  for  the  literary  magazines?  But  Mrs.  Brain- 
erd  chafed.  Not  having  been  a  woman  of  means 
or  of  any  particular  position,  she  had  been  somewhat 
self-conscious  in  mixing  with  the  great  ones  of  the 
place.  She  had,  at  length,  however,  after  a  resi 
dence  of  nearly  twenty  years,  decided  that  to  live  so 
was  nothing;  and  she  had  boldly  called  upon  Mrs. 
Robert  Lee-Satterlee.  She  had  found  the  great 
lady  all  charm  and  friendliness;  but  when,  upon 
leaving,  she  had  expressed  the  hope  that  Mrs. 
Robert  Lee-Satterlee  might  be  inclined  to  return  her 
call,  Mrs.  Robert  Lee-Satterlee  had  replied,  "Thank 
you."  "Is  it  'Thank  you,  yes'  or  'Thank  you,  no'  ?" 
the  rash  woman  had  persisted.  To  which  Mrs. 
Robert  Lee-Satterlee  had  bowed,  "Well,  since  you 
insist,  I'm  afraid  it  will  have  to  be  'Thank  you,  no.'  " 
Mr.  Brainerd  had  felt  the  snub  perhaps  more  than 
his  wife,  although  he  was  most  convincing  in  reassur 
ing  her  that  upon  trying  again,  say  with  some  one  of 
the  Whitman  family,  there  would  be  small  danger 
of  such  a  rebuff.  Mrs.  Brainerd,  however,  had  not 
tried  again  and  had,  with  what  stoicism  she  could 
command,  resigned  herself  to  the  path  God  had  or 
dered  for  her  feet.  So  Mr-  Brainerd's  end  at 


Tutors'  Lane  115 

Woodbridge  was  not  a  brilliant  one,  but  he  did  not 
shrink  or  cry  aloud,  and  it  was  generally  recognized 
that  dear  old  Burt  Brainerd  was  a  good  sport. 

The  other  Assistant  Professor  in  Freshman  Eng 
lish  has  already  been  mentioned — Jerome  Furbush. 
He  was  a  young  man,  a  classmate  of  Henry  Whit 
man,  and  rather  intimate  in  consequence.  He  was, 
quite  decidedly,  a  striking  figure.  Whereas  the 
average  member  of  the  Faculty  might  have  been 
taken  for  an  ordinary  business  man  in  his  working 
clothes,  Furbush  was  obviously  a  man  of  tempera 
ment.  Tall  and  lean,  he  had  allowed  his  beard  to 
grow  into  something  of  patriarchal  proportions,  or, 
more  exactly,  into  one  of  those  healthy  spade-like 
growths  which  the  French  know  so  well  how  to 
develop.  That  it  was  a  rich  red  only  added  to  its 
distinction,  and  to  his.  He  was  noted  for  being  a 
hard  worker  and  a  wit,  but  feeling  about  him  was 
sharply  divided.  One  could  not  be  neutral;  either 
one  hailed  him  as  a  prophet  and  seer,  or  one  hated 
him  as  an  abandoned  cynic,  a  vicious  and  arbitrary 
egoist  whose  presence  in  the  community  was  a  men 
ace.  There  appeared  to  be  evidence  in  support  of 
either  view.  It  was  true  that  the  Dean's  office  was 
frequently  absorbed  by  problems  of  his  making.  He 
had  a  weakness,  to  illustrate,  for  calling  his  students 
liars  and  cheats  upon,  frequently,  tenuous  evidence; 
and  the  discussions  that  ensued  were  never  amiable. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  certain  number  of  the  most 
promising  men  in  the  class  were  invariably  drawn  to 
him  and,  taking  up  his  battles,  defended  him  against 


n6  Tutors'  Lane 

all  detractors.  The  Permanent  Officers  had  to  ad 
mit  that  he  got  "results,"  but  they  shook  their  heads. 
Jerome  Furbush  was  notoriously  a  "case." 

Phil  Meyers,  instructor,  had  been  graduated  from 
a  small  western  college  and  had  taken  his  PH.D.  at 
a  large  eastern  university.  He  was  what  is  known 
as  a  "monographist,"  a  thesis-writer;  and  it  had 
become  apparent  to  all  that  he  was  not  long  for  the 
JWoodbridge  world.  Word  had  repeatedly  come 
through  the  somewhat  devious  channels  of  informa 
tion  that  he  was  "no  good."  His  classes  were  doing 
shockingly  bad  work  and  they  were  articulate  in 
their  disapproval  of  him.  The  coming  June  would 
close  his  first  appointment,  and  it  had  been  tactfully 
broken  to  him  that  he  need  not  expect  another. 

Such  was  the  personnel  of  the  meeting  in  Mr. 
Dawson'is  office. 

"I  have  called  you  together  today,  gentlemen," 
said  Mr.  Dawson  after  the  preliminary  pleasantries, 
"to  consider  the  advisibility  of  changing  our  course 
next  year.  It  has  been  brought  to  my  attention  that 
there  has  been  some  criticism  of  the  course  as  it  now 
stands.  Although,"  he  continued,  gazing  at  the 
blotter  before  him,  "I  could  have  wished  that  this 
criticism  might  have  been  made  first  to  me,  rather 
than  have  reached  me  indirectly,  I  am  grateful  for 
it  at  any  time  and  welcome  this  opportunity  for  dis 
cussing  it." 

The  air  had  become  electrified.  Everyone  under 
stood  that  the  criticism  referred  to  had  come  from 
only  one  source,  Furbush,  and  that  Dawson  was  ad- 


Tutors'  Lane  117 

ministering  to  him  a  public  rebuke.  Dawson  re 
mained  staring  at  his  blotter  when  he  finished,  and 
there  was  complete  silence  for  several  seconds. 
"Well?"  he  asked,  raising  his  eyes.  "Don't  hesti- 
tate,  gentlemen.  Although  the  course  is  largely  of 
my  making  at  present,  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  remain  so,  and  I'm  sure  no  one  will  welcome 
an  improvement  more  than  I."  Another  pause. 
"Come,  Jerry,  won't  you  lead  the  discussion?" 

Furbush,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  to  be  thus  ad 
dressed,  rather  than  to  presume  to  take  the  floor 
from  his  superior,  Mr.  Brainerd,  smiled  charmingly. 
"I  should  frankly  wish,"  he  said,  "that  the  discus 
sion  be  opened  by  one  of  you  gentlemen,  for  I  feel 
that  my  judgment  in  such  a  matter  is  possibly  not 
of  much  value.  I  confess  that  I  am  not  in  as  warm 
sympathy  as  any  of  you" — by  singling  out  Meyers 
at  this  point  he  lent  a  quietly  insulting  tone 
to  his  remarks — "with  the  present  course.  Were 
it  left  to  me,  I  should  do  away  with  Wordsworth, 
substituting,  possibly,  Swinburne.  I  have  some 
times  wondered  if  we  weren't  underestimating  the 
potential  strength  of  the  Freshman's  mind  by  feed 
ing  him  on  too  much  pap.  By  the  same  token  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  I  should  drop  Carlyle 
and  Hawthorne  for  Matthew  Arnold  and,  perhaps, 
Cardinal  Newman."  (Furbush  was  a  High 
Churchman  of  a  militant  dye.)  "What  I  should, 
of  course,  do  would  be  to  divide  the  present  first 
term  between  Spenser  and  Milton,  instead  of  giv 
ing  it  all  to  Shakespeare."  This  last  was  said 


n8  Tutors'  Lane 

directly  to  Dawson.     It  had  been  Mr.   Dawson's 

particular  joy  that  he  could  give  one  whole  term  to 

Shakespeare. 

Tom  was  sitting  keen-eyed  and  alert,  but  it  would 
obviously  be  madness  worse  confounded  to  risk  a 
contribution  to  this  discussion,  which  was  for  Titans 
only.  But  he  was  thrilled  by  the  duel  before  him, 
even  though  the  outcome  was  never  in  doubt,  since 
a  show  of  hands  would  give  a  unanimous  vote  to 
Dawson  whatever  the  issue.  Mr.  Dawson,  how 
ever,  declined  the  gage  of  battle  altogether.  He 
apparently  merely  wished  Furbush  to  make  public 
confession  of  the  iniquity  that  was  in  him;  and  after 
noting  out  loud  the  changes  recommended,  he 
abruptly  closed  the  meeting. 

"Well,  Jerry,  we  shall  think  over  what  you 
have  said,  and  a  week  from  today  we'd  better  get 
together  again  and  act  on  it.  At  that  time,  too, 
I  wish  you  people  would  come  prepared  with  your 
questions  for  the  final  examination  paper."  He 
looked  around  pleasantly  at  the  little  group.  "I 
guess  that  will  be  all  today,"  he  said. 

Tom  had  been  nothing  but  a  spectator  at  that 
meeting;  but  after  the  next  he  emerged  radiant. 
The  discussion  of  the  first  one  had  taken  only  a 
few  minutes.  It  happened  that  Mr.  Furbush  was 
not  able  to  be  present;  and  it  was  announced  in 
cidentally,  that  he  had  been  transferred  to  Soph 
omore  English.  Of  his  proposed  changes  nothing 
had  been  said,  although  another  change  was 
made.  It  appeared  that  Mr.  Dawson  had  been 


Tutors'  Lane  119 

teaching  The  Winter's  Tale  for  the  past  six  years 
and  that  he  wished  the  Department's  permission  to 
drop  it  for  Cymbeline,  Mr.  Dawson  explained 
that  he  was  getting  a  little  stale  on  The  Winter's 
Tale,  and  the  change  was  hurriedly  made. 

What  an  object  lesson  was  this  for  the  keen-eyed 
young  instructor!  On  the  one  hand  was  the  Scylla 
of  Mr.  Brainerd  and  on  the  other  was  the  Charybdis 
of  Mr.  Furbush.  Lucky  was  he  who  could  sail 
safely  past  the  two;  and  he  was  a  wise  young  in 
structor  who  determined  to  follow  in  the  Dawsonian 
wake. 

The  final  examination  paper  was  then  discussed; 
and  Tom,  who  had  come  fully  prepared  and  was 
extremely  wide-awake,  had  contributed  the  "spot" 
passage  in  Wordsworth  in  its  entirety — the  couplet, 

"A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 
Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet," 

was  included — and  he  had,  furthermore,  lent  a  most 
constructive  hand  in  the  framing  of  the  Carlyle- 
transcendental  question — a  performance  which  he 
retailed  to  Mrs.  Norris  at  the  earliest  moment,  and 
which  made  the  Assistant  Professorship  and  Nancy 
seem  definitely  within  his  grasp. 


XII 

MRS.  Norris  was  pleased  with  Torres 
account  of  his  success  in  the  writing  of  the 
examination  paper.  Certain  unsatisfac 
tory  rumours  had  come  to  her  ears  recently  about  his 
work.  Henry  Whitman,  for  example,  had  stated 
that  Tom  was  loafing  and  that  unless  he  picked  up 
and  showed  improvement  he  might  not  receive  a 
reappointment  when  his  present  term  had  expired. 
It  is  curious  how  everyone  knows  everyone  else's 
business  at  Woodbridge.  Each  man  has  his  grade 
stamped  clearly  upon  him,  for  all,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  man  himself,  to  see.  A  young  man 
can  raise  this  grade;  and  Mrs.  Norris — who  loved 
Tom  almost  as  though  he  were  her  own — was 
hopeful  for  him. 

"All  he  needs,  Julian,"  she  said  to  the  Dean  when 
she  told  him  of  Tom's  triumph,  "is  a  guiding  hand. 
I  can't  do  it,  because  I'm  too  old,  but  I  know  some 
one  who  can."  She  was  "straightening  out"  the 
library  at  the  time,  and  as  she  said  this  she  gave  a 
chair  a  shove  with  her  knee,  which  sent  it  flying  into 
the  books  on  the  wall. 

"Mercy  on  us,"  cried  the  Dean,  annoyed  by  this 
display  of  vigour,  "who  is  it?" 

"Nancy." 

120 


Tutors'  Lane  121 

"Oh,  pshaw,  you're  always  trying  to  marry  her 
off.  You're  the  worst  match-maker  I  know." 

Mrs.  Norris  laughed  quietly.  "You  wait  and 
see,"  was  all  she  said;  but  she  had  settled  in  her 
mind  upon  a  picnic. 

Mary,  when  approached  upon  the  subject,  had  not 
been  at  all  enthusiastic.  "Why,  it's  much  too  early 
for  a  picnic,"  she  had  objected. 

"It  is  not  at  all.  Everything  is  three  weeks 
early  this  year,  and  that  makes  it  about  the  middle 
of  May.  We'll  have  a  lovely  moon,  too.  It  will 
be  grand."  And  she  proceeded  to  invite  the  guests, 
Nancy  and  Tom,  and  Furbush,  for  it  was  true  that 
he  had  been  most  attentive  to  Mary  of  late.  Mrs. 
Norris  at  first  refused  to  go,  but  Mary  insisted. 

"You  will  have  to  watch  the  fire,  Gumgum,  while 
we  are  off  looking  for  sticks  and  things."  And  so 
she  had  gone,  after  all. 

Mrs.  Norris's  ideas  of  a  picnic  were  large,  the 
heritage  of  a  day  that  knew  few  tins  and  miraculous 
powders  that  bloom  into  omelettes.  She  scorned 
them  and  brought  along  a  generous  store  of  raw 
steak  and  bacon  and  potatoes.  A  picnic  without  a 
fire  and  roasting  meat  was  too  namby-pamby  for 
words;  and  though  she  would  not  now  undertake  to 
cook  the  food  herself,  because  of  a  certain  eccentric 
ity  of  the  knee  joints,  and  since  her  daughter,  de 
spite  her  domestic  science,  declined  to  do  so,  she  had 
brought  along  Julia  the  cook.  Nothing  but  the  big 
limousine  would  do  for  such  an  undertaking,  and,  as 
it  was,  Furbush  had  to  nurse  the  steak  in  his  lap. 


122  Tutors'  Lane 

Mrs.  Norris  would  have  reached  the  picnicking 
ground  in  a  procession  of  buggies,  but  at  that  Mary 
protested  so  vigorously  that  she  was  forced  to  re 
sign. 

The  picnic  place  was  a  pretty,  slightly  inaccessible 
rock  overlooking  a  creek.  Though  actually  not  far 
from  Woodbridge,  as  the  road  was  overgrown  and 
the  turns  sharp  the  motor  had  to  proceed  with  a 
deliberation  which  made  the  trip  justifiably  difficult. 
The  rock  itself  was  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
road;  and  since  there  was  scarcely  any  path  through 
the  woods  to  it,  there  were  made  possible  the  pretty 
callings  and  hallooings,  fallings-down  and  pickings- 
up,  without  which  no  picnic  is  quite  perfect.  Mrs. 
Norris,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  did  more  than  her  share 
of  this.  She  had  not  gone  more  than  thirty  steps 
into  the  wood  before  she  was  completely  lost;  and 
by  the  time  she  had  been  safely  brought  to  the  rock 
her  hat  was  well  over  on  one  side,  her  hair  stream 
ing  down,  and  the  torn  fringe  of  her  petticoat  drag 
ging  along  behind  in  the  dirt.  Julia  and  Horace, 
the  chauffeur,  however,  had  gone  directly  to  the 
rock  without  the  preliminary  vagaries  vouchsafed 
to  their  superiors,  and  by  the  time  Mrs.  Norris  was 
finally  captured  they  had  succeeded  in  getting  the 
supper  well  under  way. 

Upon  her  arrival  Mrs.  Norris  announced  her  in 
tention  of  roasting  a  potato. 

"Gumgum,  please  sit  down,"  begged  her  daugh 
ter.  "You  are  only  upsetting  everything,"  and  she 
laid  an  unfilial  hand  upon  her  mother's  arm. 


Tutors'  Lane  123 

"I  am  going  to  roast  a  potato,"  Mrs.  Norris 
cried,  shaking  herself  free  and  seizing  upon  a  pared 
potato.  "Tommy,  get  me  a  stick." 

"Isn't  she  awful,"  laughed  Mary.  "Don't  you 
dare  give  her  a  stick,  Tom."  But  Tom  did  dare, 
and  Mrs.  Norris,  with  her  smiling  benignity,  stood 
waving  the  stick  back  and  forth  over  the  fire  in  time 
with  the  andante  movement  of  her  favourite  Brahms 
sonata. 

"Well,  we  might  as  well  get  ready  to  eat  that  old 
stuff,"  said  Nancy  to  Furbush.  "Don't  you  dread 
it?" 

"I  would  not  dread  it,  dear,  so  much,  dreaded  I 
not  mother  more,"  he  replied,  to  Mary's  intense 
gratification.  But  Tom,  who  heard  the  low-spoken 
words,  thought  them  decidedly  forced  and  disliked 
Furbush  the  more  for  them. 

Furbush's  presence  was  undoubtedly  a  drawback 
to  Tom's  pleasure.  How  could  he  be  natural  with 
a  person  whom  he  disliked  as  much  as  he  did  Fur- 
bush  and  who  he  knew  disliked  himj?  Besides,  he 
did  not  feel  like  being  sprightly  and  picnicky  with 
Nancy  beside  him.  Instead,  he  felt  homesick,  or  at 
least  that  is  the  way  it  seemed  to  him.  Still,  how 
could  it  be  genuine  homesickness  when  the  object 
of  his  yearning  was  beside  him?  Nevertheless, 
there  had  been  in  his  thoughts  recently  the  picture 
of  a  certain  small  colonial  house  in  Tutors'  Lane,  a 
house  now  for  rent  or  for  sale.  Possibly,  however, 
the  contrast  of  such  a  life — the  house  would  be  fur 
nished  with  highboys  and  gate-leg  tables  and  oval, 


124  Tutors'  Lane 

woven  mats — with  his  present  one  at  Mrs.  Ruddel's 
furnished  him  with  a  genuine  case  of  homesickness, 
after  all.  How  perfect  would  life  be  in  such  sur 
roundings!  He  liked  to  think  of  breakfast:  He 
and  Nancy,  alone,  except,  of  course,  for  the  pretty, 
efficient  maid — at  their  mahogany  breakfast  table. 
Nancy,  busy  with  the  coffee  things  at  one  end  and  he 
at  the  other — no,  at  the  side — tucking  away  his 
grapefruit  and  bacon  and  hot  buttered  muffins  and 
jam  in  the  last  few  minutes  before  he  dashed  off  up 
the  hill  to  his  eight-thirty.  Good  heavens,  what  a 
life  that  would  be !  He  saw  Nancy  with  the  morn 
ing  light  on  her  hair  and  her  pleasant,  lively  face — 
the  nose  with  only  the  faintest  possible  trace  of 
powder — bending  over  his  cup;  and  then  he  realized 
that  he  was  gazing  at  her  now  in  the  same  position, 
only  with  the  sunset  light  in  her  hair,  and  with  a 
white  porcelain  cup  receiving  the  coffee  out  of  a 
thermos  bottle,  instead  of  a  china  cup  from  a  swell 
ing-silver  pot. 

"Careful  Tommy,  you  are  dribbling  it  all  over 
me." 

"Oh,  Nancy,  I'm  so  sorry.  I  ask  you,  isn't  that 
stupid.  Please  excuse  me." 

"A  little  lemon  or  a  hot  iron  or  soap  and  water 
will  fix  it,  probably,"  said  Furbush. 

Tom  looked  over  at  Furbush.  He  hated  his 
liquid  tones,  like  honey  dripping  on  a  blue  plush 
sofa.  "How  the  hell  do  you  get  that  way?"  he 
wanted  to  ask — then  he  rounded  out  the  sentence 
with  certain  phrases  which  had  been  current  among 


Tutors'  Lane  125 

our  heroes  along  all  war  fronts  from  Kamchatka  to 
Trieste.  Even  a  milder  remark  was  happily 
averted,  for  at  this  point  the  potato  which  Mrs. 
Norris  had  been  steadily  roasting,  burst  into  flame 
and  had  to  be  plunged  into  the  fire;  a  grateful  acci 
dent,  for  now  she  was  willing  to  sit  down  on  the 
camp  stool  brought  for  her  and  to  confine  herself 
to  the  slicing  of  the  bread. 

What  passed  until  the  meal  was  finished  was  of 
slight  significance.  It  was  a  decidedly  detached 
party,  the  two  couples  being  brought  together  chiefly 
through  Mrs.  Norris;  and  when  Nancy  and  Tom 
had  finished  a  banana  which  they  had  divided  in  the 
jolly  picnic  way,  Tom  stood  up.  "Do  you  realize," 
he  asked  Nancy,  "that  this  is  a  wishing  carpet  we've 
been  sitting  on?  Let's  take  it  down  by  the  creek 
and  see  where  it  will  take  us." 

"Oh,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Norris,  not  at  all  dis 
pleased.  "And  now  where  are  you  and  Mary 
going?" 

"We're  going  to  look  for  crocuses  in  the  garden 
of  the  Queen  of  the  Fairies,"  replied  Furbush. 
"They  ought  to  be  up  now." 

"Well,  take  along  this  flashlight:  it's  getting  aw 
fully  bosky-wosky  in  there."  And  then  Mrs. 
Norris  was  left  alone  with  Julia,  whom  she  enter 
tained  with  an  animated  and  brilliant  account  of  Ti- 
tania  and  Oberon. 

"Where  shall  we  go?"  asked  Tom  when  they 
were  seated  on  the  magic  motor  rug. 

"Let's  go  to  Libya!"  said  Nancy  promptly. 


126  Tutors'  Lane 

"Libya !  Well,  I  suppose  we  might  as  well  go 
there  as  anywhere.  You  realize,  of  course,  that 
we  won't  go  until  I  put  my  foot  on  the  carpet" — 
his  left  foot  was  straggling  over  the  eclge. 

"Perhaps  you'd  better  keep  it  there  for  a  few 
minutes,  then,  until  we  are  sure  that  we  really  want 
to  go.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  it  is  rather 
nice  right  here  in  Woodb ridge,"  and  she  smiled  up 
at  him. 

Nancy  had,  of  course,  smiled  upon  a  great  many 
young  men  without  precipitating  a  proposal  of 
marriage,  but  then,  the  young  men  had  probably  not 
woven  her  image  into  their  future  hopes  and  fears 
as  thoroughly  as  he  had.  Also  the  hour  and  the 
place  lent  their  potency  to  her  smile.  The  soft 
spring  evening,  happily  extended  by  Daylight  Sav 
ing,  the  noisy  little  creek  running  by  their  feet,  and 
the  staunch  ally  of  all  such  projects,  the  great  round 
moon,  all  combined  to  weave  a  spell,  just  as  Mrs. 
Norris  planned  that  they  should. 

Tom  had  come  to  the  picnic  prepared  to  speak 
his  mind,  not  doubting  that  an  opportunity  would 
be  given  him.  He  had  not  memorized  a  speech, 
but  was  ready  to  trust  to  the  inspiration  of  the  mo 
ment.  His  cause  was  an  honest  one;  he  might  ex 
pect  the  gift  of  tongues,  but  the  starting  gun  had 
now  been  fired,  the  race  was  on,  and  he  was  not 
granted  the  gift  of  tongues.  A  little  preparation 
might  not  have  been  amiss,  after  all. 

"I  agree  with  you  about  Woodbridge.  In  fact, 
I  think  had  rather  go  on  living  here  than  anywhere 


Tutors'  Lane  127 

else  in  the  world,  provided  one  thing."     He  had 
plunged  in  without  the  gift  of  tongues. 

It  was  not  so  dark  but  that  Tom  could  see  the 
colour  come  into  her  face.  "Provided  what,  Tom?" 

"Provided  I  can  have  you,  Nancy.  Provided 
you  can  love  me  as  I  love  you."  He  had  come 
nearer  her,  and  although  he  had  brought  both  feet 
upon  the  magic  carpet,  they  remained  stationary. 
"You  mean  more  to  me  than  anything  I  have  ever 
known.  I  used  to  wonder  how  I  could  ever  think 
more  of  anyone  than  I  thought  of  Woodbridge  and 
the  Star  and  the  different  boys  in  college,  but  that 
was  nothing  compared  to  this."  Nancy  was  trac 
ing  a  series  of  geometrical  patterns  upon  the  magic 
carpet  with  a  bit  of  stick.  "I  wish  I  could  do  some 
thing  to  show  you  how  much  I  care  now."  Still 
Nancy  said  nothing.  "And,  oh,  Nancy,  what  you 
could  do  for  me !  With  you  to  help  me,  I  think 
I  could  do  anything.  But  I  know  I  need  you. 
Nancy,  will  you  marry  me?" 

Nancy  was  hardly  prepared  for  this.  She  had, 
since  the  social  service  fiasco,  acknowledged  to  her 
self  that  she  had  grown  in  that  short  space  very 
fond  of  Tom.  She  looked  forward  to  seeing  him, 
and  when  he  was  gone  she  went  over  with  pleasure 
what  he  had  said  and  how  he  had  looked.  She 
liked  his  drollery  and  his  strength,  she  admired  his 
poise  and  self-reliance;  and  she  had  the  greatest  re 
spect  for  his  teaching  ability,  of  which  she  had  re 
ceived  direct  proof.  Still,  she  was  not  at  all  sure 
that  she  wished  to  marry  him.  After  all,  she  had 


128  Tutors'  Lane 

really  known  him  only  something  over  a  month,  and 
it  was  not  the  Whitman  way  to  hurry  into  anything 
— least  of  all  into  matrimony. 

"You  mustn't  ask  me  that,  Tom." 

"Why  not,  Nancy?" 

"Because  I  cannot  accept;  not  now." 

"You  mean  that  perhaps  you  can  later(?  For  of 
course  I  shall  never  grow  tired  of  asking  you." 

The  moon  had  climbed  a  little  and  had  turned  a 
silvery  yellow.  It  flooded  the  rock  and  the  people 
moving  about  on  it,  but  Nancy  and  Tom  remained 
in  shadow.  "Tell  me,  Nancy,"  he  said,  leaning 
over  and  covering  with  his  own  the  hand  upon 
which  she  was  resting,  "tell  me  that  I  may  ask  you 
again,  for,  dear  Nancy,  I  cannot  lose  you."  She 
did  not  draw  her  hand  away  immediately  and  when 
she  did  so  she  did  it  gently. 

"You're  awfully  good,  Tom,"  she  said  and  Tom's 
heart  swelled  at  the  softness  of  her  tone.  Then 
she  climbed  to  her  feet,  and — Tom  picking  up  the 
magic  carpet,  which  had  become  soaked  through 
with  the  dampness  of  the  creek  bank — they  made 
their  way  back  to  the  rock. 

And  so  ended  their  first  love  scene.  That  Tom's 
behaviour  will  appear  tepid,  in  these  vigorous  days, 
is  to  be  feared.  His  own  contemporaries,  of  both 
sexes,  will  almost  certainly  be  the  first  to 
point  out  that  had  they  been  in  his  place  nothing 
would  have  kept  them  from  proceeding  from  the 
tame  seizure  of  Nancy's  hand  to  some  bolder  action. 
Tom,  however,  helping  Nancy  along  over  the  rocks 


Tutors'  Lane  129 

and  sticks  was  happily  oblivious  of  his  unconvention- 
ality.  The  beauteous  evening  did,  in  very  truth, 
seem  calm  and  free  to  him,  though  the  party  on  the 
rock  was  making  a  little  too  much  noise  to  have  the 
holy  time  quiet  as  a  nun,  breathless  with  adoration. 
His  mind  turned  to  the  scrap  of  Wordsworth  he  had 
lately  memorized,  and  though  he  was  a  trifle  an 
noyed  to  find  that  he  couldn't,  even  now,  perhaps 
when  he  most  wanted  it,  remember  all,  the  phrase 
"comfort  and  command"  stayed  with  him  and  did 
nicely  for  the  whole. 


XIII 

TOM  telephoned  to  Mrs.  Norris  the  next  day 
to  make  certain  that  he  might  see  her. 
He  felt  that  she  was  an  ally  in  the  matter 
of  Nancy,  and  it  was  important  to  get  her  advice. 

He  found  her  knitting  by  the  yellow  lamp  in  the 
library.  "Well,  Tommy  dear,"  she  said,  looking 
at  him  with  a  quizzical  smile,  "was  the  picnic  a  suc- 
cess|?" 

"Mrs.  Norris,  you  are  wonderful.  When  I  think 
how  much  I  owe  to  your  generation.  After  all,  I 
think  a  woman  is  loveliest  at  fifty." 

"Oh,  flatterer!" 

"But  you  know  you  cannot  get  that  fine  savoir 
*uivre  before." 

"Oh  dear  me,  how  much  more  savoir  vivre  I'll 
have  when  I'm  eighty.  What  an  old  charmer  I'll 
be  then !  Will  you  come  to  see  me  when  I'm  eighty, 
Tommy?" 

"What  a  question!" 

"Well,  I  hope  you  won't  take  me  off  on  any  old 
wishing  carpet  and  put  me  down  in  a  damp,  horrid 
place  and  give  me  tonsilitis." 

"Who  has  tonsilitis?" 

"Nancy,  of  course,  and  you  gave  it  to  her,  you 
bad  thing." 

130 


Tutors'  Lane  131 

Tonsilitis!  He  remembered  now  the  damp  rug 
and  also  certain  sniffles  that  had  required,  from  time 
to  time  on  the  homeward  trip,  the  administration 
of  a  diminutive  handkerchief  with  a  pretty  "N"  em 
broidered,  he  knew,  in  the  corner.  So  that  is  the 
way  he  would  look  after  her! 

"What  can  I  do  about  it?"  It  was  true  that  Mrs. 
Norris  was  taking  it  very  calmly. 

"Do?  Why,  you  can't  do  anything  but  wait  until 
she  gets  over  it.  You  might  go  and  see  her  when 
she  begins  to  pick  up." 

"I  caught  cold  myself."  He  had  at  least  been 
true  to  that  extent. 

"Are  you  doing  anything  for  it?  Remind  me 
when  you  go,  and  I'll  give  you  some  Squim.  It's 
something  new,  and  it  did  wonders  for  Mary." 

"Don't  you  think  it  might  be  nice  for  me  to  send 
Nancy  some?"  asked  Tom,  laughing.  Tonsilitis 
was  seldom  fatal,  after  all;  and  what  an  excellent 
excuse  to  visit  her  it  would  be  when  she  was  getting 
better! 

"Tommy,  dear,  haven't  you  something  to  tell 
me?" 

"No,  not  really." 
"Not  anything?" 

"Well,  hardly  anything."  He  was  sitting  near 
her,  and  now  he  leaned  forward  and  whispered,  "I 
asked  her  to  be  my  wife,  and  she  refused."  It  was 
not  said,  however,  in  the  tone  one  would  expect  for 
such  an  unhappy  message.  Mrs.  Norris  looked  at 
him  curiously.  "She  said  she  couldn't  answer  me 


132  Tutors'  Lane 

now,  but  as  good  as  gave  me  permission  to  ask  her 
again — and  when  a  girl  talks  that  way,  isn't  it  as 
good  as  settled?" 

It  did  look  promising,  certainly.  But  then,  there 
was  Henry.  "What  about  Henry?"  she  asked. 
"How  does  he  feel?" 

"What  has  he  to  do  with  it?" 

"Oh  my,  he  was  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  He's  more 
than  just  a  brother,  you  know.  He's  her  father 
and  mother." 

"And  aunt,  maiden  aunt,  as  well." 

Mrs.  Norfis  laughed.  "Henry's  to  be  reckoned 
with,  though,  just  like  Marshal  Ney — or  was  it  Cin- 
cinnatus?  I  never  can  remember." 

"But,  Mrs.  Norris,  what  am  I  to  do?" 

"Why,  you  must  just  be  very  nice  and  thoughtful 
to  Nancy  and  as  decent  as  you  can  be  to  Henry, 
and  pray  the  Good  Lord  will  help  you." 

"Will  you  pray  for  me,  too?"  Tom  had  played 
too  much  baseball  not  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
organized  cheering. 

"Yes,  I'll  pray  for  you."  And  then  Tom  jumped 
up  and  planted  a  thoroughgoing  kiss — which  was  de 
signed  for  the  cheek,  but  which,  upon  her  turning 
quickly,  was  delivered,  in  a  manner  that  even  Leof- 
win  would  have  applauded — upon  her  neck. 

On  the  sixth  day  Nancy  sat  up  for  a  while  dur 
ing  Miss  Albers'  hour  and  a  half  off.  There  was 
an  abutment  at  one  end  of  her  room  which  over 
looked  the  Whitman  garden  and  carried  the  eye  on 


Tutors'  Lane  133 

down  the  hill  until  it  rested  on  the  factory  in  Whit- 
manville — the  factory  which  made  the  garden  possi 
ble  for  her.  There  was  a  letter  in  her  lap  from 
Tom.  It  had  come  with  his  roses  and  it  asked  her 
to  go  with  him  to  the  boat  race.  There  was  also 
a  book  in  her  lap,  but  she  made  no  effort  to  read  it ;  it 
was  so  much  easier  just  to  gaze  out  of  the  window 
and  let  her  mind  wander  where  it  would. 

Henry  knocked  and  entered.  "Well,  this  is  very 
nice.  Do  you  really  feel  a  lot  better?" 

"Ever  so  much,  thank  you.  I  think  probably  I'll 
get  up  in  a  day  or  two." 

"I  suppose  you'll  want  your  tonsils  out  now,  won't 
you?"  The  question  of  a  tonsilectomy  had  been 
a  moot  one  for  years.  Nancy  had  always  been 
anxious  to  have  them  out,  having  been  told  that  it 
was  merely  a  case  of  "snip,  snip,  and  a  day  on  ice 
cream."  Henry,  who  regarded  tonsilectomy  skep 
tically  as  a  fad,  and  who  knew,  furthermore,  that  it 
was  a  major  operation  for  adults  and  that  old  Mrs. 
'Merton  hadn't  walked  straight  since  she  had  had 
hers  out,  was  strongly  opposed.  This  had,  in  fact, 
been  an  exceedingly  sore  point  with  them,  and  the 
amount  of  unhappiness  engendered  by  it  was  consid 
erably  in  excess  of  that  which  would  have  resulted 
from  an  operation  when  it  was  first  suggested. 

"I'll  have  to  wait,  of  course,  until  I  get  well  over 
this.  It  isn't  like  a  rheumatism,  you  know." 
Nancy  had  learned  the  jargon  thoroughly. 

Well,  that  subject  was  now  disposed  of,  and 
Henry,  with  the  directness  of  a  trained  economist, 


134  Tutors'  Lane 

abruptly  went  into  the  main  object  of  his  call. 
There  had  been  certain  features  about  Nancy's  de- 
lirjum  which  had  astonished  and  annoyed  him,  and 
he  had  come  with  the  express  purpose  of  discussing 
them  should  he  find  Nancy  strong  enough.  He 
now  decided  that  she  was  strong  enough.  "Do  you 
realize  that  when  your  fever  was  high  you  talked  at 
a  great  rate?"  he  asked. 

"I  vaguely  remember  mumbling  and  grumbling." 

Henry  did  not  relish  his  task,  but  he  felt  it  to  be 
his  duty — and  Henry  had  never  been  one  to  shirk  his 
duty.  "You  talked  a  great  deal  about  this  Tom 
Reynolds,"  he  said. 

"Yesj?"  Nancy  was  aware  that  she  coloured. 
She  was  aware  also  of  a  sudden  sinking  sensation, 
not  dissimilar  to  the  one  that  comes  from  a  too  rapid 
drop  in  an  elevator.  So  Henry  had  come  to  her  at 
the  first  possible  moment  to  protest  against  "this 
Tom  Reynolds."  "He  has  had  a  bad  recitation," 
she  thought,  "and  now  he  is  going  to  take  it  out  on 
me,"  and  then  she  called  her  brother  a  hard  and  in 
elegant  name,  as  people  will  when  angry  with  their 
dearest  relatives.  Had  Nancy  been  of  a  satirical 
nature  she  might  have  made  something  of  her 
brother's  adoption  of  Freudian  methods;  but  she 
was  not,  and  she  knew  only  direct-fire  warfare. 

"Nancy,"  Henry  went  on,  leaning  towards  her, 
"surely  you  are  not  in  love  with  that  man?" 

Had  Tom  been  a  head  hunter  with  tin  cans  in  his 
ears,  Nancy  would  have  loved  him  at  that  moment. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  she  said. 


Tutors'  Lane  135 

Henry  stared  at  her.  It  was  clear  she  meant 
what  she  said.  Then  he  glanced  at  the  letter  and 
the  book  that  lay  in  her  lap,  as  people  will  notice 
small  things  at  such  times.  He  guessed  in  whose 
handwriting  the  letter  was,  and — the  book  was 
Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese !  She  had  even  taken 
to  sentimental  rubbish ! 

"Oh  Nancy,  can't  you  see  that  he  is  not  worthy  of 
you?  Who  are  his  people?  Where  is  he  from? 
I  wouldn't  give  that  for  his  future  here.  He's  lazy, 
and  he's  filled  you  up  on  a  lot  of  poetry.  Nancy, 
think  well  of  it  before  it's  too  late."  She  was 
gazing  out  the  window,  hardly  hearing  him.  She 
had  confessed  aloud,  before  Henry,  that  she  loved 
Tom.  Henry  was  going  on.  "If  you  won't  think 
of  yourself,  perhaps  you  can  think  of  Henry  Third? 
What  is  to  become  of  him  if  you  go?" 

Nancy  turned  to  look  at  him.  She  felt  giddy 
now,  and  she  thought  she  was  going  to  cry.  It 
would  not  do,  however,  to  make  a  scene,  when  up  to 
this  point  she  had  acquitted  herself  so  well.  "You 
mean  that  I  should  give  up  my  life  to  look  after 
your  son?" 

"Please  don't  be  melodramatic.  We  know  one 
another  so  well  it  isn't  necessary.  I  am  not  asking 
you  to  give  up  your  life.  I  am  asking  you  not  to 
throw  it  away,  and  in  the  meantime  you  have  certain 
definite  obligations  here.  You  are  more  than  an 
aunt  to  Henry.  Life  here  with  him  will  be 
far  better  for  you  than  being  the  wife  of  that  uncer 
tain  boy." 


136  Tutors'  Lane 

She  allowed  it  to  pass,  but  it  gave  the  final  flick 
to  her  anger.  "You  are  the  kind  of  person,  Henry, 
who  is  so  monumentally  selfish  that  you  think  every 
body  who  dares  to  cross  you  in  any  way  is  himself 
monumentally  selfish  too.  Now  you  come  to  me  in 
a  protective  role  to  save  me  from  'this  Tom 
Reynolds'  with  a  mass  of  ill-natured  slander — and 
lies — because  if  I  go  to  him  you  will  have  to  get  a 
new  housekeeper." 

"Nancy—" 

"Don't  interrupt  me,  please.  It  would  be  the 
same,  no  matter  who  came.  You  would  find  some 
dreadful  fault  in  anyone.  You  always  have  been 
jealous  of  every  man  that  ever  came  here  and  if  you 
had  your  way  you  would  keep  me  here  for  life." 
Nancy  paused,  but  her  brother  did  not  offer  to  speak. 
She  had  asked  not  to  be  interrupted,  and  he  would  be 
quite  sure  that  she  was  through  before  he  spoke 
again,  but  he  could  not  conceal  his  anger.  Nancy 
noticed  it,  and  her  own  anger  increased.  "I  don't 
think  I'd  mind  it  so  much,  if  you  didn't  pretend  that 
it  was  all  for  my  good.  That  is  nothing  but  rank 
hypocrisy.  Just  what  have  you  ever  done  to  make 
my  life  pleasant  here?  You  are  never  interested  in 
what  I'm  interested  in,  outside  of  Harry.  This 
lecture  business  you  just  laughed  and  sneered  at.  I 
admit  it  was  ridiculous,  but  you  wouldn't  lift  your 
finger  to  make  it  less  so.  I  admit,  also,  that  I 
would  appreciate  a  little  attention  once  in  a  while, 
but  it  would  never  occur  to  you  to  give  me  any  pleas 
ure  unless  you  had  to,  to  get  some  for  yourself. 


Tutors'  Lane  137 

When  you  really  want  to  give  me  a  good  time  you 
sit  down  and  talk  to  me  about  your  miserable  old 
Labour  class  and  what  a  wonderful  lecture  you  gave 
them.  Well,  Henry,  that  time  is  past,  and  I  am 
going  to  have  my  own  life  from  now  on."  And  the 
tears  which  she  had  been  fighting  back  were  no 
longer  to  be  denied. 

Henry  was  entirely  put  out,  and  he  awkwardly  got 
up.  Now  was  clearly  not  the  time  to  renew  the  at 
tack.  Nothing  that  Nancy  had  said  was  of  the 
slightest  significance,  except  her  lack  of  interest  in 
his  work.  There,  indeed,  was  a  sorry  confession  of 
inability  to  forget  herself  in  the  greatest  interest  of 
her  nearest  relation.  Poor  wilful  girl!  Well,  he 
had  done  his  duty.  No  one  could  charge  him  with 
unbrotherliness. 

Nancy  had  also  got  up.  "Please  go  away,"  she 
sobbed;  and  Henry,  without  further  word,  did  so. 

Nancy  crawled  back  into  bed  and  had  her  cry  out. 
What  a  brute  he  was — and  what  a  god  was  Tom! 
What  a  miserable  snob  Henry  was  about  family — 
and  then  for  him  to  say  that  Tom  had  no  future! 
Had  Tom  been  a  member  of  his  wretched  old  Grave, 
he  would  have  had  a  very  different  view  of  it.  That 
was  the  cause  of  nine-tenths  of  his  dislike,  anyway. 
Tom  was  in  the  rival  club  and  Henry  never  could 
see  any  good  in  anyone  connected  with  it.  What  a 
miserable,  juvenile  business !  Had  not  Tom  frankly 
confessed  his  need  of  help?  Henry  had  never  in 
any  way  indicated  that  she  could  be  of  service  to 
him,  except  to  order  his  meals  and  keep  him  comfor- 


138  Tutors'  Lane 

table.     But   Tom   had   thrown   himself  upon   her. 

He  "needed"  her — that  had  been  his  word.     With 

her  to  help  him  he  felt  that  he  could  do  anything. 

What  a  career  for  a  girl!     That  would  be  living 

indeed. 

She  thought  of  his  unanswered  letter  and  climbed 
out  of  bed  at  once.  "Dear  Tom,"  she  wrote,  and 
again  the  tears  came  into  her  eyes,  "Thank  you  so 
much  for  the  lovely  flowers.  They  are  by  my  bed 
and  I  can  enjoy  them  all  day  long.  It  is  awfully 
nice  of  you  to  ask  me  to  the  Boat  Race  and  I  ac 
cept  with  pleasure.  I  don't  think  there  will  be 
any  question  about  my  being  able  to  make  it.  In 
two  weeks  I  should  be  perfectly  well  again. 

"It  will  be  lovely  to  see  you  and  I  can  Bo  so  at 
any  time  now. 

"As  ever, 
"NANCY." 

The  final  draft  of  the  letter  was  composed  only 
after  three  preliminary  ones.  Nancy  found  it  ex 
tremely  difficult  to  get  just  the  right  tone.  She 
couldn't  put  too  much  warmth  into  it,  and  yet  it 
mustn't  be  too  cold.  So  she  sat  at  her  desk,  copy 
ing  and  recopying,  and  only  succeeded  in  finishing 
it  when  Miss  Albers  returned. 

"I've  done  it  at  last,"  she  announced  proudly, 
her  cheeks  aflame.  Miss  Albers,  fortunately  one 
of  the  few  surviving  members  of  the  Good  Nurse 
family,  saw  the  situation  immediately. 

"Why,  I  see  you  have,"  she  said.     "Isn't  that 


Tutors'  Lane  139 

fine !  Now  I  think  you  are  entitled  to  a  nice  nap." 
And  when  Tom  arrived,  post-haste  upon  receipt 
of  Nancy's  note,  he  was  met  at  the  front  door  with 
the  news  of  her  relapse. 


XIV 

WHEN  Tom  reached  the  Whitman  house 
on  the  day  of  the  race,  he  found 
it  full.  He  had  seen  Nancy  only  once 
since  her  illness;  and  as  her  room  had  then  been 
filled  with  people,  his  call  was  not  remarkable. 
He  had  not  failed  to  notice,  nevertheless,  that  the 
colour  came  into  her  face  as  he  entered  the  room; 
and  there  had  been  other  auspicious  signs  which 
had  had  an  exciting  effect  upon  his  pulse.  This 
call  had  been  made  only  two  days  before  the  race, 
and  it  was  then  clear  that  Nancy  could  not  go 
with  him.  A  Philadelphia  cousin  had,  however,  an 
nounced  her  arrival — a  particular  friend  of  hers 
being  in  the  Woodbridge  boat — and  would  Tom 
mind  taking  her?  Uncle  Bob  Whitman  had  won 
derful  seats,  being  an  Overseer,  but  he  wasn't  go 
ing  to  be  able  to  use  them,  and — of  course  Tom 
would  be  only  too  happy  to  take  her. 

Nancy,  pale  and  lovely,  was  serving  tea,  but  she 
found  time  to  thank  him  again  for  his  goodness 
about  the  Philadelphia  cousin,  and  then  she  took 
him  over  to  be  presented.  On  the  way  across  the 
room  they  passed  Henry.  Tom,  who  stared  at 
him,  missed  the  tell-tale  blush  on  Nancy's  cheeks. 
Instead,  he  only  saw  Henry  shift  his  eyes  calmly 

140 


Tutors'  Lane  141 

from  Nancy  to  him  and  bow  coldly.  Tom  bowed 
as  coldly  in  his  turn,  and  then  Nancy  left  him  with 
the  Philadelphia  cousin. 

Lily  Griffin,  the  Philadelphia  cousin,  gazed  at 
him  steadily  from  under  the  floppy  expanse  of  her 
black  hat.  She  was  sitting  on  a  low  cane  covered 
bench  before  the  fireplace,  and  her  legs,  which  were 
encased  in  light  grey  silk  stockings  and  which  term 
inated  in  slippers  of  the  same  color,  her  legs,  let  it 
be  relentlessly  repeated,  were  the  most  conspicuous 
things  in  the  room.  Over  her  shoulders  were  the 
thin  strings  of  an  undergarment  that  Tom  thought 
was  generally  concealed.  Still,  one  couldn't  be  at 
all  sure  about  such  things  from  one  day  to  the  next. 

"Would  you  mind  taking  my  cigarette?"  she 
asked,  handing  him  the  stub. 

"So  you  know  Platt  Raeburn,"  he  began  ami* 
ably  when  he  had  returned  from  his  pretty  task. 

"Yes." 

"He's  an  awfully  nice  boy.  I  know  him  quite 
well."  Platt  was  in  the  Star;  and  Lily,  who  knew 
a  great  deal  about  such  things,  immediately  sus 
pected  that  Tom  was  also.  How  else  would  a  pro 
fessor  know  a  crew  star  "quite  well"?  Her  inter 
est  in  Tom  rose.  He  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  at 
tractive  eyes;  and  that  cerise-coloured  knitted  tie 
with  a  pearl  stickpin  might  indicate  much. 

"Platt  is  a  nice  boy,  isn't  he?"  she  continued  with 
a  shade  more  enthusiasm.  "We  went  on  the  most 
wonderful  party  this  Easter.  He  wasn't  in  training 
then,  you  know,  and  I  have  never  seen  any  one  fun- 


142  Tutors'  Lane 

nier  than  he  was.  We  were  at  the  Greysons'  in 
Ardmore,  and  Platt  thought  he  was  insulted  by  the 
butler  when  he  took  Platt's  cigarette  off  a  table 
and  threw  it  in  the  fire.  It  was  burning  the  table, 
but  old  Platt  didn't  know  that,  and  he  knocked  the 
man  down." 

"It  must  have  been  funny,"  said  Tom,  who  had 
heard  the  story  before. 

"Oh,  it  was  a  scream.  I  thought  I'd  die  laugh 
ing.  It  was  really  awfully  bad  of  him,  though, 
don't  you  think?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  Tom  boldly.  "I  don't 
think  it  was  so  very  bad.  You've  got  to  expect 
that  sort  of  thing  nowadays." 

"Mercy,  I  didn't  think  you'd  say  that.  Aren't 
you  a  professor  here,  or  something?" 

"Yes,  something." 

"Well,  but  I   always  thought " 

"What?"  with  a  smile. 

"Oh,  nothing.  Say,  just  between  you  and  I,  don't 
you  think  this  is  rather  slow?"  and  she  gave  him 
a  look  that  showed  he  was  making  good. 

The  hospitality  they  were  accepting  was,  of  course, 
his  own  Nancy's,  and  to  be  strictly  honourable  he 
should  have  defended  everything,  but  with  certain 
definite  reservations  in  his  mind  he  replied, 
"Deadly." 

"That  dreadful  old  creature  over  there  actually 
eyed  me  when  I  smoked  that  last  cig."  The  dread 
ful  old  creature  was  Mrs.  Conover,  who  found  it 
difficult  to  reconstruct  herself  to  the  present  century. 


Tutors'  Lane  143 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  awfully  stupid  living 
here.  Now,  isn't  it  really?" 

"No,  it  isn't  half  bad." 

"Oh,  I  can  see  you're  a  highbrow,  like  all  the 
rest  of  them.  Personally,  I  couldn't  stand  it. 
I'm  too  independent,  I  guess.  What  a  sweet  dog." 
Clarence  was  before  her,  arrayed  in  the  Wood- 
bridge  colours.  "I  love  dogs.  I've  the  sweetest 
little  Boston  bull  bitch  at  home.  She  won  a  silver 
flask  for  me  last  year."  She  was  examining 
Clarence  with  the  eye  of  a  practised  dogwoman. 
"Do  you  know  anything  about  Airedales?"  Tom 
didn't.  "I  suspect  his  tail  is  wrong,"  she  said. 
"Now  run  along,  sweetie,"  she  called  to  Clarence; 
"momma  can't  have  a  baby  with  wrong  tail." 
Clarence  received  this  incredulously,  but  a  complica 
tion  was  averted  by  the  arrival  of  Nancy.  "We 
were  just  criticizing  your  dog,  my  dear.  Why  don't 
you  have  his  tail  fixed?" 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  it?"  asked  Nancy. 
She  hated  the  thought  of  anything  having  hap-1 
pened  to  Clarence. 

"Why,  it's  too  long.  You  should  have  two 
inches  at  least  cut  off."  The  picture  of  Clarence 
going  around  with  his  tail  done  up  in  a  bandage 
was  a  delightful  one,  and  Nancy  laughed. 

Lily  appealed  to  Tom.  "Isn't  she  heartless?" 
But  before  Tom  could  answer  the  slightly  embar 
rassing  question,  the  cruel  one  announced  that  they 
had  better  be  on  their  way,  as  the  race  started  at 
five  and  it  was  then  half-past  four.  So  they  hustled 


144  Tutors'  Lane 

into  the  Whitman  motor  and  drove  to  Center,  where 

the  new  observation  train  was  already  filling. 

The  race  with  Hartley  was  always  one  of  the 
great  spring  events,  but  the  new  observation  train 
made  it  more  of  an  event  than  ever.  People  gloated 
over  it  as  though  they  had  never  seen  a  train  be 
fore,  much  to  the  amusement  of  Lily,  whose  at 
tendance  at  New  London  had  been  frequent. 
Many  paused  admiringly  at  the  engine  and,  as  they 
passed  on  up  the  line  of  a  dozen  cars,  loudly  pro 
claimed  their  admiration  of  the  entire  arrangement. 
"They  are  just  like  prairie  schooners,"  said  one 
young  man,  to  Lily's  huge  delight,  for  she  had  never 
before  seen  so  much  provincialism  all  at  once.  The 
platform  was  thick  with  people  rushing  to  find  their 
cars  at  the  last  minute.  All  was  hurry  and  excite- 
ment  and  colour  and  laughter.  The  orange  of 
Woodbridge  and  the  olive  of  Hartley  were  every 
where.  Each  person  boldly  displayed  his  colours, 
whether  with  flowers  or  feathers,  and  it  was  clear 
that  earth  had  few  greater  pleasures  than  this. 
Then  the  engine  tooted  and  rang  its  bell,  and  with 
a  convulsive  wrench  they  were  off,  amid  the  cheers 
of  everyone. 

Tom  and  his  Lily  were  seated  between  the  Hartley 
cheering  section  and  the  Woodbridge  cheering 
section,  in  the  very  choice  seats  which  Mr.  Whitman 
naturally  commanded  and  Tom,  although  he  thought 
boat  racing  a  much  overrated  sport  and  resented 
its  being  preferred  to  baseball,  felt  a  distinct  thrill 
as  they  passed  out  upon  the  river  bank  and  up  to 


Tutors'  Lane  145 

the  starting  point.  Only  the  cold  unseasonable 
wind  which  swept  down  the  course,  riffling  the  water 
and  chilling  every  one  to  the  bone,  marred  the  day. 

They  arrived  at  the  starting  point,  and  the  oc 
cupants  of  the  new  cars  wrapped  what  little  they 
had  around  them.  Quite  obviously,  the  race  could 
not  be  rowed  until  the  wind  died.  There  was  noth 
ing  to  do  but  just  sit  and  wait. 

The  Hartley  cheering  section  immediately  climbed 
down  upon  the  bank,  with  the  exception  of  one  young 
man  who  was  left  with  his  head  lolling  over  the 
side  of  the  car  next  to  Tom.  Friendly  remon 
strance  had  been  futile.  He  had  refused  to  move 
and  had  elected  to  slumber.  "I  think  he's  sweet," 
said  Lily,  gazing  over  at  him.  "Tell  me,  do  you 
have  much  trouble  getting  liquor  here?" 

"No,"  said  Tom.  Already  the  spell  of  the  day 
was  wearing  off. 

"I've  learned,  to  my  sorrow  that  you  can't  be  too 
careful.  Such  a  time  as  I  had  last  month!  I  went 
out  to  a  luncheon  party — May  Stephens — you  know 
her?  Well,  just  before  luncheon  I  was  astonished 
to  see  cocktails  appear.  I  didn't  think  May  had 
any  stock,  but  there  she  was  just  the  same,  jiggling 
the  shaker  up  and  down.  Well,  at  the  first  sip  I 
thought  something  was  funny,  but  there  was  nothing 
to  do  about  it;  and  then  May  gave  me  a  dividend, 
and  although  it  nearly  killed  me,  I  managed  to  get 
it  down,  and  then  when  we  were  all  through  she 
asked  us  how  we  liked  it.  Well,  I  told  her  I 
thought  it  was  a  little  funny,  and  then  she  announced 


146  Tutors'  Lane 

what  I  knew  all  along;  that  she  had  made  it  herself. 
'I  made  it  out  of  spirits  of  nitre,'  she  said.  'Did 
you  boil  off  the  ether?'  someone  asked,  and  she  said 
she  hadn't!  Well,  we  hadn't  got  hardly  started  at 
lunch  when  one  of  the  girls  passed  right  straight  out 
and  then  we  all  began  feeling  trembly  and  queer, 
and  then  the  next  thing  I  knew  I  was  at  'home  in 
bed,  and  I  wasn't  up  and  about  for  a  week.  Wasn't 
that  awful?" 

Tom's  enthusiasm  was  ebbing  fast.  What  a  pro 
digious  bore  this  race  was  going  to  be !  The  wind 
was  blowing  up  his  legs,  and  his  light  spring  over 
coat  was  far  from  ample.  The  seats  were  too 
close  together  and  were  of  a  granite  hardness;  but 
he  and  Lily  were  wedged  into  the  back  and  could 
not  escape  without  treading  upon  the  toes  of  half 
of  Woodbridge's  notables.  So  he  sat  still  and  tried 
to  smile  brightly  at  the  conclusion  of  her  story. 

"Do  you  know?"  Lily  continued,  "I  think  you 
have  a  lovely  smile." 

"Goody,"  replied  Tom,  and  smiled  again,  this 
time  rather  archly. 

Lily  was  examining  him  between  half  closed  lids. 
"And  I  think  you  have  nice  eyes,  too — particularly 
the  lashes.  They  are  so  long  and  silky." 

"Well,  it's  a  great  secret,  of  course,"  replied 
Tom,  "and  you  mustn't  tell  even  your  mother" 
— Lily  giggled — "but  I  think  you  have  the  prettiest 
way  with  you  I  have  ever  seen." 

"Oh,  dear  me,  you  are  funny.  Now  you  must 
keep  me  warm." 


Tutors'  Lane  147 

The  car,  it  has  been  pointed  out,  was  full  of 
Woodbridge  notables,  and  any  warming  of  the 
young  lady  would  not  have  been  looked  upon  with 
favour.  Nor  would  Tom  have  cared  to  warm  her 
had  they  been  quite  alone  at  the  North  Pole.  What 
an  ordeal  this  was  getting  to  be,  and  how  lucky  was 
Nancy,  comfortably  seated  before  the  fire !  How 
good  would  that  particular  fire  be,  and  what  a  soft 
and  fragrant  place  to  ask  a  certain  question!  What 
a  contrast  Nancy  made  to  this  miserable  girl  beside 
him!  Nancy  at  the  time  happened  to  be  repairing 
certain  ravages  that  the  tea  had  made  upon  her 
nephew's  best  blue  suit,  but  the  scheme  of  Tom's 
thoughts  was  not  spoiled. 

"Bad  man,  you're  not  showing  me  any  kind  of 
a  time." 

Tom  was  exasperated.  A  group  in  front  of  them 
had  built  a  fire.  "How  would  you  like  to  go  down 
there?"  he  asked.  "Can  you  climb  down  over  the 
side  here?" 

"  'Course  I  can." 

Tom  climbed  over  the  railing,  dropped  to  the 
ground,  and,  turning  his  ankle,  cried  "Ouch!" 
loudly  enough  to  waken  the  young  Hartley  man 
whose  head  was  lolling  over  the  adjacent  rail 
ing.  The  youth  looked  up  and  beheld  the  lovely 
Lily  poised,  apparently  preparing  to  fly  into  his 
arms.  He  reared  himself  up.  "Come,  lovely 
girl,"  he  cried,  "I  love  you."  And  then  as  she 
swooped  by,  he  made  a  grab  at  her  and  tore  her 
dress. 


148  Tutors'  Lane 

"You  bad  boy,"  she  cried,  with  little  discretion, 
"you  tore  my  dress." 

"You  bad  boy,"  repeated  the  young  Hartley  man, 
"yuhtoradress,  yuhtoradress." 

Tom  had  managed  to  hurry  her  away,  although 
his  ankle  hurt  him  considerably,  but  not  until  all  the 
notables  had  seen  the  performance.  What  a  morti 
fying  affair.  No  doubt  many  supposed  that  he  was 
the  one  who  had  torn  the  dress. 

Fortunately,  Lily  met  a  friend  at  the  fire,  and 
Tom  was  free  for  the  time  being.  Would  the  wind 
never  die  down?  The  flag  on  the  coach's  launch 
was  not  quite  so  active.  There  was  a  rumour  that 
they  would  start  at  six-thirty.  Only  half  an  hour 
more.  Well,  he  could  stand  that.  Lily  seemed  to 
be  having  a  time  with  her  new  young  man,  and  he 
limped  over  to  a  neighbouring  fire  where  there  were 
fewer  Lilies  and  more  heat.  There  he  met  a  class 
mate  of  whom  he  was  particularly  fond;  and  before 
he  knew  it  the  starter's  launch  had  put  out  into  the 
river,  and  the  parties  around  the  fires  were  scamper 
ing  back  aboard  the  train.  With  considerable  diffi 
culty  he  followed  Lily  up  over  the  side,  for  his  foot 
was  now  swollen  and  painful.  Finally,  however, 
they  were  seated  again,  buoyed  up  with  the  thought 
of  the  race's  being  at  last  under  way — when  the 
starter's  boat  retired  from  the  scene,  and  word 
arrived  that  the  race  would  not  be  rowed  until  seven. 

Tom  could  not  cover  his  disappointment. 

"I  don't  think  you   are  very  polite!"  said  Lily. 


Tutors'  Lane  149 

"Sorry,"  replied  Tom,  his  ankle  throbbing. 

"In  fact  I  think  you're  horrid." 

"Good!"  said  Tom.  Lily  looked  her  rage  and 
half  turned  her  back  on  him  Well,  that  was  some 
thing  to  be  thankful  for,  at  any  rate. 

They  sat  there  in  ever-increasing  gloom.  Some 
of  the  Lilies  gamboled  back  to  shiver  over  the  fires, 
but  even  they  were  beginning  to  droop.  Tom's* 
Lily  would  have  joined  them — her  new  friend  was 
not  a  wet  smack — but  Tom,  with  his  throbbing 
ankle,  did  not  offer  to  go,  and  she  was  too  proud  to 
suggest  it.  So  they  sat  and  waited. 

The  race  was  eventually  rowed.  At  the  starter's 
gun  the  train  gave  another  convulsive  jerk,  which 
sent  Tom's  injured  foot  flying  against  the  side  of 
the  car,  and  the  crowd  fanned  into  life  its  jaded  en 
thusiasm.  Out  in  the  gathering  dusk  the  two  crews 
inched  their  way  along.  It  was  not  quite  clear 
which  was  which,  the  blades  both  showing  black, 
and  though  Lily  was  certain  she  had  located  Platt 
and  cheered  lustily  for  his  boat,  subsequent  evidence 
indicated  that  he  was  in  the  other.  The  two  cheer 
ing  sections  woke  to  frenzy,  and  the  notables'  car 
was  swept  with  confusion.  Lily  was  beside  herself 
and  kept  jumping  to  her  feet  with  an  appealing  cry 
of  "Oh  Platt!"  Tom  looked  over  at  the  Hartley 
car  at  one  point  and  saw  that  his  friend  had  appar 
ently  had  fresh  access  to  his  source  of  refreshment, 
for  he  was  now  blissfully  asleep,  cheek  on  the  railing. 

At  the  two-mile  stake — with  a  final  mile  to  go — 


150  Tutors'  Lane 

the  boats  were  even,  but  both  sides  were  jubilant, 
for  from  each  section  it  clearly  showed  that  the  home 
crew  was  ahead.  Then  the  train  shot  behind  a 
heavily  timbered  point,  and  when  the  view  of  the 
river  was  again  free,  the  Woodbridge  shell  was  half 
a  length  behind  and  obviously  beaten.  A  pang  of 
disappointment  shot  through  Tom.  Oh,  well,  it 
was  a  fitting  climax  to  the  day.  There  they  were, 
slipping  back  and  back.  They  were  splashing  badly, 
and  one  of  the  Woodbridge  men  was  obviously  not 
pulling  his  weight.  Then  the  Hartley  boat  flashed 
over  the  finish  amid  the  tooting  of  countless  auto 
mobiles  along  the  banks,  a  winner  by  a  length  and 
a  quarter. 

The  Hartley  people  had  given  way  to  a  trans 
port  of  joy,  while  their  coxswain  crawled  along  his 
shell  throwing  water  over  the  chests  and  faces  of 
his  men.  The  two  boats  floated  idly  about,  their 
crews  bowed  foward,  gasping  in  agony  for  strength. 
To  the  men  in  the  Hartley  boat  came  the  faint 
sound  of  their  grateful  supporters.  They  had  won 
— and  what  was  an  enlarged  heart  or,  possibly,  a 
damaged  kidney,  to  such  glory?  The  half  hyster 
ical  screams  of  their  Lilies  were  sweet  compensation. 
As  for  the  Woodbridge  crew,  well,  they  would  have 
to  swallow  their  dose  as  best  they  could — and  wait 
for  next  year. 

The  young  Hartley  man  next  to  Tom  woke  up. 
"  'S  the  race  over?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  it's  over,"  shouted  Tom,  for  no  one  else 
heard  him. 


Tutors'  Lane  151 

"Thank  God,"  he  shouted  hoarsely,  and  went  back 

to  sleep — a  sentiment  which  cheered  Tom  so  much 

that  Lily,  on  the  homeward  trip,  decided  he  wasn't 

quite  such  a  dumb-bunny,  after  all. 


XV 


SCARCELY  a  day  went  by  now  without  Tom's 
tracing  his  steps  to  the  Norris  house.  He 
seldom  bothered  any  more  with  the  formal 
ity  of  the  door:  going  around  to  the  terrace  side, 
he  walked  into  the  drawing-room  unannounced.  If 
no  one  was  at  home,  he  sat  down  with  a  magazine 
or  book  in  the  library  or  drummed  at  the  piano. 
Then,  possibly,  he  would  go  before  anyone  arrived; 
but  the  house  which  was  so  friendly  to  him  and  so 
full  of  Nancy,  was  far  dearer  to  him  than  her  own, 
for  Henry's  hostility  was  too  marked  to  make  his 
visits  there  other  than  difficult. 

So  it  was  that  he  came  unexpectedly  upon  Mrs. 
Norris,  Mary,  and  Nancy  when  he  walked  into  the 
library  on  the  day  following  the  race;  and  then  he 
regretted  his  free  and  easy  entrance.  For  Mary 
was  in  tears  and  was  receiving  the  comfort  of  her 
mother  and  friend.  Tom  backed  hurriedly  out, 
muttering  an  inarticulate  apology  and  cursing  him 
self  for  an  awkward  fool.  Mary  saw  him,  how 
ever,  and  with  a  sob  brushed  past  him  in  the  hall  and 
went  upstairs.  Her  mother  who  swept  after  her 
like  a  large  and  stately  galleon  in  her  black  silk 
dress,  was  more  troubled  than  he  had  ever  seen  her. 

152 


Tutors'  Lane  153 

Still,  as  she  passed,  she  told  him  not  to  mind.     And 
then  he  was  alone  with  Nancy. 

"What    on    earth    is    the    matter?"    he    asked. 
Nancy,  too,  was  thoroughly  upset. 

"Just  look  at  that,"  she  said,  and  pointed  to  an  ar 
ticle  in  a  New  York  evening  paper.  "Woodbridge 
Professor  Drowns,"  ran  the  headlines.  "Over 
taken  by  Cramps  After  Eating  Cherries  and  Milk." 
It  appeared  that  Professor  Furbush  had  defied  the 
popular  fear  of  the  fatal  combination  and,  in  order 
to  make  his  defiance  complete,  had  promptly  gone 
in  swimming  after  eating  it.  The  tragedy  had  oc 
curred  at  the  country  house  of  relatives;  and  though 
a  number  of  people  were  present,  they  took  his  cries 
for  help  as  a  joke  until  it  was  too  late.  The  account 
went  on  to  explain  that  it  was  more  sad  even  than 
it  might  at  first  appear,  for  it  was  generally  sup 
posed  that  the  dead  man  had  been  engaged  to  marry 
Miss  Mary  Norris,  daughter  of  the  Acting  Presi 
dent  of  Woodbridge. 

"Why,  isn't  that  dreadful,"  said  Tom.  It  is 
always  a  little  hard  to  know  what  should  be  said  in 
such  circumstances.  If  the  one  who  has  just  died 
is  close  to  us,  we  don't  think  about  what  to  say  at  all, 
but  if  it  is  only  an  acquaintance  and  we  are  merely 
a  little  thrilled  by  his  going,  it  is  difficult;  for  de 
cency  requires  a  solemn  look  and  a  shocked  word. 
So  Tom  did  what  he  could  to  be  decent;  and  Nancy, 
who  was  staring  with  half  averted  face  out  upon  the 
garden,  made  no  reply.  She,  of  course,  knew  all 
the  secrets  of  Mary's  heart  and  must  be  sharing 


154  Tutors'  Lane 

her  sorrow.  Accordingly,  any  words  from  him, 
other  than  sympathetic  ones  for  Mary's  loss,  would 
be  untimely.  Perhaps,  even,  she  would  insist  upon 
remaining  in  sisterly  spinsterhood!  "It's  awfully 
tough,  isn't  it,"  Tom  added. 

"Yes,"  said  Nancy,  somewhat  faintly,  from  the 
curtains.  Nancy  seemed  very  much  upset.  Tom 
knew  that  Furbush  had  been  a  frequent  visitor  at 
her  house,  and  probably  she  had  grown  fond  of  him. 
He  was  not  at  all  aware,  however,  that  Furbush's 
affair  with  Mary  had  progressed  so  far.  He 
could  not  picture  Furbush  marrying  Mary — or  any 
one  else,  for  that  matter — and  he  doubted  whether 
Furbush  would  have  married  her.  Still,  it  appeared 
that  Mary  had  cared  for  him,  and  now  her  little 
romance  was  over. 

"It's  awfully  hard  on  Mary,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes." 

Furbush  was  gone.  Who  would  take  his  place? 
His  place,  an  Assistant  Professorship — there  was 
now  a  vacancy!  A  flood  of  excitement  swept 
through  him.  But  how  foolish  to  expect  that  it 
would  fall  to  him.  He  had  taught  but  one  year, 
and  he  was  only  twenty-five.  People  still  spoke  of 
Harry  Spear's  having  been  given  his  Assistant  Pro 
fessorship  at  the  end  of  three  years  as  a  record- 
breaking  performance.  He  knew  perfectly  well, 
furthermore,  that  he  had  not  made  a  startling  suc 
cess  of  it;  not  the  kind  of  success  that  makes  a  man 
jump  from  a  Captaincy  to  a  Brigadiership.  Still,  he 
thought  he  stood  quite  as  well  as  the  other  young  in- 


Tutors'  Lane  155 

structors  in  the  department;  and  his  "outside  con 
nections"  were  considerably  better.  After  all,  a 
man's  career  in  college  counted  for  something.  And 
so,  although  he  knew  that  the  thing  was  impossible 
and  that  what  they  would  do  would  be  to  go  outside 
for  an  older  man,  he  luxuriated  for  a  moment  in  the 
picture  of  the  Dean  congratulating  him  on  his  suc 
cess.  An  Assistant  Professorship  and  Nancy !  The 
two  were  linked  in  his  mind  as  the  sum-total  of  de 
sire;  and  since  he  could  think  of  Nancy  without 
thinking  of  the  Assistant  Professorship,  but  could 
not  think  of  the  Professorship  without  thinking  of 
Nancy,  it  is  to  be  supposseed  that  Nancy  came  first. 

And  there  she  was  now,  over  by  the  window,  pain 
fully  aware  of  the  garden  and  fidgeting  ever  so  little 
with  the  curtain.  Perhaps  this  might  not  be  such  a 
bad  time  to  repeat  his  question,  after  all.  Had  she 
not  of  her  own  free  will  come  to  the  Norris  house, 
at  which  she  knew  that  he  was  almost  a  daily  vis 
itor?  There  was  in  that  something  to  give  him 
heart.  As  if  he  hadn't  enough  evidence  without  it! 

"You  will  admit,  though,  Nancy,  that  it  was  an 
awfully  stupid  thing  for  him  to  eat  the  cherries  and 
milk,  won't  you?  Everyone  knows  that  it  can't  be 
done."  Tom  moved  over  nearer  to  her,  but  she 
did  not  answer  him.  Instead,  she  fixed  her  eyes 
steadily  on  the  bulging  root  of  an  elm  in  the  garden. 
She  must  concentrate  everything  on  that  to  keep 
from  being  an  utter  fool.  But  what  an  hour  it  had 
been !  First  the  dreadful  news  about  Furbush  an3 
that  thing  in  the  paper,  and  then  Tom's  unexpected 


156  Tutors'  Lane 

entrance.  How  wonderful  he  looked  as  he  came 
into  the  room;  he  had  been  so  self-possessed,  and 
she  should  have  been  such  a  ninny  in  his  place! 

Tom  took  a  step  nearer.  "Nancy,"  he  said  very 
tenderly. 

The  root  was  waving  now;  it  would  become  in 
distinct.  How  gentle  he  was,  and  how  different 
from  Henry!  "Nancy!"  he  repeated.  Then  the 
root  became  altogether  blurred  and  meaningless, 
and  she  felt  him  take  her  in  his  arms  and  kiss  her. 
"Darling  Nancy,"  he  was  saying;  and,  somehow,  to 
her  great  relief,  she  found  an  apparently  adequate 
reply. 

It  was  decided  that  a  long  engagment  was  al 
together  unnecessary,  a  decision  which  was  without 
repeal,  in  view  of  the  absence  of  parental  super 
vision.  Why  waste  the  perfectly  good  summer? 
Why  indeed?  And  so  the  wedding  was  set  for  a 
few  days  after  Commencement. 

"That  will  give  me  just  about  enough  time  to  get 
ready,"  said  Nancy,  "and  I  really  think  you  must 
get  a  new  cutaway." 

Then  at  last  Commencement  was  over.  The 
electricians  bore  away  for  another  year  the  last  of 
the  class  numeral  signs  which  had  hung  from  their 
respective  Headquarters.  The  Headquarters  them 
selves  had  been  swept  and  cleaned  and  restored  to 
their  owners,  and  one  by  one  the  dwellers  in  Tutors' 
Lane  prepared  to  board  up  their  houses  for  the  sum 
mer  and  depart  for  the  mountains  or  for  the  shore. 


Tutors'  Lane  157 

The  wedding  alone  kept  most  of  them  in  Wood- 
bridge.  Few  there  were  that  had  not  some  pleas 
ant  memory  of  Nancy,  and  the  sacrifice  of  a  day  or 
two  of  vacation  was  counted  as  little.  Furbush's 
dramatic  end  had  held  the  centre  of  the  Wood- 
bridge  stage,  but  it  was  now  forced  into  the  back 
ground  by  the  question:  Was  Tom  good  enough 
for  Nancy?  It  was  generally  agreed  that  he  was 
getting  the  best  of  it,  but  not  many  thought  that 
she  was  altogether  throwing  herself  away  upon  him. 
Nancy  might  have  married  anyone,  it  was  pointed 
out,  and  having  had  so  much  responsibility,  she 
could  have  graced  the  board  of  a  much  older  man. 
Instead,  she  had  chosen  a  young  instructor — a  pleas 
ant  enough  boy,  perhaps  but  still  unproved.  Well, 
Nancy  would  make  the  most  of  him,  there  was  no 
question  of  that,  and  of  course  he  was  a  great  friend 
of  the  Norrises  and  it  was  known  that  Mrs.  Rob 
ert  Lee-Satterlee  herself  approved  of  the  match. 
So  they  would  hope  for  the  best,  and  Nancy  was  a 
dear  girl. 

Tom  was  in  perfect  accord  with  the  last  senti 
ment,  and  it  will  perhaps  be  charitable  to  draw  a 
veil  over  his  behaviour  at  this  time.  Such  names 
as  "Mrs.  Mouse"  and  "Boofly  Woofly"  are  all  very 
well  when  whispered  teasingly  into  the  delighted 
ear  of  one's  intended,  but  they  hardly  stand  the 
light  of  unromantic  day.  They  have  even  been 
known  to  set  up  opposing  currents  of  emotion  in 
breasts  not  so  nicely  attuned,  and  to  inspire  such 
expressions  as  "Fish  1"  or  even  "Blat !"  It  may  well 


158  Tutors'  Lane 

be  a  considerate  office,  therefore,  not  to  submit  our 
lovers  to  the  graceless  manners  of  the  unsympathetic, 
but  to  let  them  enjoy  their  artless  passages  un 
molested. 

One  of  these,  alone,  might  be  risked.  Nancy 
had  confidingly  told  him  that  she  had  all  the  faith 
in  the  world  in  his  future,  and  he  heard  her  grate 
fully.  "Why,  the  way  you  talked  to  those  men  at 
the  mill  shows  clearly  enough  what  you  can  do," 
she  said. 

Tom  coloured  slightly,  but  let  the  moment  pass 
without  explanation.  When  he  had  first  done  so 
it  was  with  the  mental  reservation  that  he  would 
laughingly  explain  it  some  day,  and  he  would,  too, 
but  it  wasn't  yet  just  the  right  time.  So  he  stooped 
and  kissed  her  affectionately;  and  then,  as  he  was 
hatless  at  the  time,  she  was  reminded  of  something 
she  had  long  wanted  to  tell  him. 

"If  you  don't  look  out,  Tom,  you  will  be  perfectly 
bald  in  five  years." 

"Well,    I've   done    everything   I    can,    and " 

"Now,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  brush  it  five  min 
utes  in  the  morning  and  five  minutes  at  night." 

"Ten  minutes  a  day!      I  should  be  exhausted." 

"Well,  I  shall  do  it  for  you,  then."  Whereupon 
the  scene  acquired  an  excess  of  sentiment  at  once. 

Certain  more  mundane  passages  may  be  ob 
served,  however,  without  any  particular  offence. 

The  passages  that  took  place  around  the  open 
ing  of  the  wedding  presents  were  possibly  as  di 
verting  as  any.  Tom,  whose  mind's  eye  was  ever 


Tutors'  Lane  159 

upon  the  little  colonial  house  in  Tutors'  Lane,  now 
his  property,  was  perhaps  more  concerned  than 
most  grooms  are  in  the  furnishing  of  his  nest.  He 
found  himself  greatly  elated  when  he  or  his  bride 
would  draw  forth  some  shining  prize  of  a  silver 
bowl  or  plate — until  they  began  getting  too  many  of 
them — and  correspondingly  depressed  when  some 
many-coloured  glass  lamp  or  strange  dish  would 
appear.  What  on  earth  could  they  do  with  them? 
Dear  old  Mrs.  Conover,  for  example,  sent  a  large 
Bohemian  glass  jar  of  a  peacock-eyes  pattern. 
It  would  have  to  be  on  view  when  she  called,  and 
as  they  had  no  way  of  knowing  when  that  would  be, 
it  had  to  be  on  view  all  the  time. 

From  Omaha  came  an  ominous  package  which 
made  Tom  shudder.  Would  his  sister  contrive  to 
mortify  him?  He  could  picture  her  pleasure  in 
doing  so,  and  when  the  package  was  opened  and  out 
came  two  china  parrots,  Tom  thought  the  pleasure 
was  hers.  A  note  which  came  with  the  birds  ex 
plained  that  they  were  very  fashionable  in  Omaha 
at  the  time  and  that  all  Omaha  had  them  on  its 
dinner  table.  To  Tom,  his  sister's  gift  and  note 
could  hardly  have  been  worse,  but  Nancy  kissed  him 
and  told  him  not  to  be  stupid,  that  the  parrots  were 
nice;  and  Tom  was  so  flustered  he  couldn't  tell 
whether  they  were  or  not.  At  any  rate,  Nancy 
wrote  a  charming,  sisterly  little  note,  and  Tom  was 
more  pleased  with  his  future  than  ever. 

The  silver  tea  service  which  arrived  early  from 
Mrs.  Robert  Lee-Satterlee  was  among  the  grand- 


160  Tutors'  Lane 

est  presents  that  Nancy  received  from  outside  the 
family.  She  was  particularly  grateful  for  it,  since 
it  enabled  her  to  leave  her  mother's  with  Henry 
and  thus  avoid  a  discussion  which  would  have  been 
unendurable  at  the  time.  It  was  true  that  Henry's 
wife  had  had  a  tea  service  herself  and  that  it 
was  now  his;  but  it  was  not  so  fine  as  the  Whitman 
one,  and  Henry  would  have  regarded  its  removal 
with  a  jaundiced  eye.  His  wife's  silver,  however, 
was  quite  a  bit  more  handsome  than  the  family  sil 
ver,  and  he  relinquished  the  latter  with  a  gesture 
so  graceful  that  any  further  donation  of  property  to 
the  hymeneal  happiness  seemed  almost  fulsome. 
Still  he  did  make  a  further  contribution — a  costly 
set  of  John  Stuart  Mill. 

A  few  days  after  she  announced  her  engagement 
Nancy  was  waited  upon  by  the  Misses  Forbes. 
Their  mission  was  one  of  obvious  importance,  for 
they  seldom  moved  out  of  their  warm  little  house, 
excepting,  of  course,  Miss  Jennie,  who  was  quite 
indifferent  to  the  outside  and  marched  forth  almost 
without  a  thought.  They  wore,  furthermore,  a 
serious  demeanour — even  Miss  Jennie,  whose  as 
sumption  of  a  cavalier  manner  didn't  quite  hide  her 
excitement.  She  was  carrying  a  small  parcel  neatly 
done  up  in  white  tissue  paper;  and  when,  after  a 
period  of  rocking,  she  launched  upon  the  little 
speech  she  had  prepared,  her  liver-spotted  old  hands 
opened  and  closed  over  it.  "You  must  know,  my 
dear,"  she  said,  "that  we  are  going  to  miss  you 


Tutors'  Lane  161 

very  much.  Of  course,  you  are  not  really  going 
away" — the  little  colonial  house  was  in  truth  only 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  farther  from  their  house  than 
Nancy's  present  one — "yet  it  can't  be  quite  the 
same,  and  we  want  to  mark  your  going  with  our 
love  and  best  wishes.  So  we  have  brought  you  the 
Burnham  lace  for  you  to  keep  and  hand  down  to 
your  children,  and  may  God  bless  you,  my  dear,  and 
keep  you."  Then  they  all  had  a  quiet  turn  at  their 
handkerchiefs,  and  the  Burnham  lace  passed  into 
the  House  of  Reynolds. 

Leofwin  also  called  and  delivered  his  gift  in 
person.  Tom  was  fortunately  in  the  room  at  the 
time,  and  the  somewhat  painful  scene  was  not  pro 
tracted.  It  was  the  first  meeting  they  had  had  since 
Leofwin  had  offered  his  hand  and  been  rejected, 
and  even  Leofwin  was  constrained.  Nancy  won 
dered  if  Elfrida  were  to  have  her  trip  to  Italy,  but 
she  could  not  put  the  question  without  appearing  un- 
maidenly  since  she  knew  so  well  the  only  condition 
of  the  trip;  and  as  Woodbridge  had  not  many  girls 
that  were  eligible  for  Leofwin's  love,  the  prospect 
was  indeed  black.  "Your  happiness  is  all  I  ask,"  he 
said  in  a  low  tone,  and,  despite  the  theatrical  die)- 
tion,  even  Tom  was  touched  by  his  sincerity.  "You 
know,  of  course,"  he  went  on,  "that  I  am  not  in  a 
position  now  to  make  an  adequate  expression  of  my 
wishes" — it  was  rather  affecting  even  though  no 
body  present  quite  knew  what  he  meant — "but  I 
have  brought  you  the  best  I  have.  It  is  of  small 


162  Tutors'  Lane 

material  value,  but  its  sentimental  value  is  great.  I 
did  all  my  best  work  with  it."  Whereupon  he 
handed  her  a  paint  brush. 

With  considerable  of  a  tOrdo,  Mrs.  Norris  an 
nounced  the  gift  of  a  grandfather's  clock.  "There 
is  no  use,  Nancy  dear,  in  dragging  it  around  from 
house  to  house,  and  I'm  having  it  sent  to  your  new 
one."  Accordingly,  when  the  expressman  an 
nounced  its  arrival  everyone  proceeded  to  the  little 
colonial  house  in  Tutors'  Lane.  Then  difficulties 
arose.  To  begin  with,  it  was  too  tall  for  any  room 
in  the  house;  and  after  a  great  deal  of  staggering 
around  with  it,  trying  it  first  in  this  place  and  then 
in  that,  a  gorgeous  wooden  plume  which  stuck  up 
from  its  head  had  to  be  removed.  Then  it  was 
discovered  that  there  were  no  works  in  it,  Mrs. 
Norris  having  bought  only  the  case,  supposing  of 
course  that  the  thing  was  complete.  When  finally 
the  parts  had  all  been  assembled  and  adjusted — 
which  was  in  the  second  year  of  Tom's  and  Nancy's 
married  life — it  was  learned  that  the  ways  of  the 
clock  were  nearly  as  eccentric  as  those  of  its  donor, 
for  when  it  went  at  all,  the  hands  made  the  down 
ward  journey  with  so  much  rapidity  that  they  were 
exhausted  at  the  bottom  and  in  no  condition  for  the 
return  trip.  The  end  came  one  morning  when  the 
clock,  which  was  known  as  "Aunt  Helen,"  was 
discovered  to  have  died  at  six-thirty;  and,  all 
horological  assistance  having  been  summoned  in 
vain,  it  was  suffered  to  stand  in  its  corner,  untouched 
except  by  dust  cloths,  its  hands  forever  pointing  at 


Tutors'  Lane  163 

six-thirty,  an  eloquent  warning  of  the  end  of  indo 
lence. 

Although  perhaps  Mrs.  Norris's  contribution  to 
the  future  life  of  our  lovers  was  not  distinguished 
by  that  perfect  satisfaction  which  we  all  strive  to 
furnish  with  our  wedding  gifts,  her  services  at  the 
wedding  itself  were  invaluable.  Nancy  naturally 
turned  to  her  for  assistance  with  the  thousand  and 
one  preliminaries  that  the  bride's  mother  usually 
performs,  and,  moving  in  her  own  wondrous  ways, 
Mrs.  Norris  saw  to  everything. 

The  night  before  the  wedding  arrived,  and  she 
gave  a  dinner  for  the  bridal  party.  As,  after  con 
siderable  discussion,  Nancy  had  consented  to  have 
the  reception  at  the  Norris  house,  Mrs.  Norris  re 
lieved  the  minds  of  her  people  in  the  kitchen  by  hav 
ing  a  buffet  supper — and  using  paper  napkins. 

Nancy  was  grateful  for  this,  for  she  was  extremely 
tired,  and  the  simpler  everything  could  be,  the 
better.  So  the  supper  was  eaten  all  over  the  house 
and  out  on  the  terrace,  and  when  the  last  paper  nap 
kin  had  been  crumpled  up,  and  the  entire  party  had 
been  brought  together  to  drink  the  bride's  health, 
and  her  future  husband's,  and  their  mutual  healths, 
in  the  Dean's  1854  champagne,  the  party  was 
whisked  off  up  to  the  college  church  for  rehearsal. 

Upon  arriving  there,  Nancy  being  engaged  mo 
mentarily  with  Mary,  who  had  heroically  consented 
to  be  her  maid  of  honour,  Tom  stole  away  by  him 
self.  Before  the  church  the  ridge  sloped  gently 
away,  giving  an  unobstructed  view  of  the  valley. 


164  Tutors'  Lane 

The  evening  was  a  perfect  one,  and  Tom  enjoyed 
one  of  those  rare  moments  when  one  feels  in  com 
plete  accord  with  everything.  All  around  him  were 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  bucolic  tranquillity;  and 
within,  apart  from  the  comfortable  effects  of  the 
Dean's  wine  and  cigar,  were  such  melting  thoughts 
as  we  may  only  guess  at.  Life  was  now  just  be- 
ginning  for  him — and  how  good  it  was! 

The  sun  died  in  ever  darkening  carmine.  Tom 
flicked  the  ash  from  his  cigar  and  held  it  up  against 
the  light.  It  matched  perfectly.  A  long  zeppelin- 
like  cloud  hung,  apparently  motionless,  a  little 
higher  up.  Tom  moved  his  cigar  up  to  it  and  cocked 
one  eye.  Again  perfect  harmony.  But,  even  as  he 
looked,  the  cloud  thinned  out  at  one  end  and  spoiled 
it  a  little.  Oh,  well,  it  was  perfect,  anyway. 

Behind  him  came  the  strains  of  the  church  organ 
and  the  voices  of  the  bridal  party.  They  were  call 
ing  him.  He  paused  deliciously,  drinking  in  the 
last  moments  of  his  freedom.  And  then,  throwing 
away  his  cigar,  he  passed  quickly  up  the  hill  and  in 
to  the  lighted  church. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


REC'O  LD-URL 

MAY  101971 


Form  L'J-  Series  444 


A     000  130  109     2 


